Industrial park planned for Gulf

Source:
The National- Thursday, February 3, 2011
By ANCILLA WRAKUALEGULF will see the development of an industrial park project that will cater for all the resource project activities in the province like the PNG LNG Project in partnership with Inter-Oil and Energy World International.Gulf Governor Havila Kavo revealed this at a media conference yesterday.Kavo said extensive studies such as social mapping and environmental studies are underway in projected impacted areas to establish snapshots on the likely impacts and other issues to allow for equal participation from the people.“We hope the industrial park would help Gulf citizens and PNG at large,” said Kavo.He said PNG is blessed with vast resources and these resources should be used to industrialise PNG.Gulf has established a business arm called Gulf Oil and Gas Company (GOGC) which is solely responsible for resource development projects in the province.GOGC chief executive Mark Baia said they were doing checks and balances to ensure that everyone was included in the projects and that relevant studies and awareness were conducted before the implementation.Baia highlighted that once everything came into place, they were also looking at developing key such as airport and deep water port facilities and housing infrastructure.He said they were looking at improving cash economy such as local coffee processing and coconut production for the people.Also yesterday, two consultants who would be engaged in carrying out marine and ecological studies in the impacted areas around Ihu, Baimuru and Kikori were commissioned.Prominent marine biologist Pochon Lili said he was honoured to be included in the project and that it was vital the studies should be conducted to set baseline and data on what was on the ground.