PNG Government to set up first Petroleum Engineering School

Papua New Guinea Government will set up a Petroleum Engineering Academy in the country and this will be the first of its kind in the South Pacific apart from Australia and New Zealand. The school will give Papua New Guineans opportunity to be trained  as Petroleum Engineers . The college will be situated at the world-class state-of-the-art training facility at Idubada near Port Moresby. 

The initiative is funded by Kumul Petroleum Holding’s participation in the South Pacific Employment Institute (often referred to as “SPEI”). 

The Kumul Petroleum Academy, as it will be known, is an integral part of the Government’s overall workforce nationalization initiative. 

The important milestone was celebrated at a special event in Port Moresby on Nov 6.

Kumul Petroleum Holdings managing director Wapu Sonk said the Government noted the concerns of capacity gap to fill technical and operational jobs required in the energy and engineering sectors, and as such, during the PNGLNG construction phase, more foreign labour was mobilised. 

With the establishment of the Kumul Petroleum Academy, PNG will produce and supply an internationally certified and accredited workforce. 

He said the Kumul Petroleum Academy brought together the competitive edges of both SPEI as the specialised trainer of the energy sector and Kumul Petroleum Holdings as the industry manager to cater for the rapidly growing labour demands in the power and energy sector including upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas sector as well as catering for other process oriented industries and associated technical training.

The live training plant at the Kumul Petroleum Academy will replicate a full size processing plant with real live process systems, centralised control room, emergency protection systems and electrical distribution centre to provide a real life scenario training and assessment facility in a safe and controlled environment. 

The facility will be the first of its kind for the Pacific region. 

It will be built and operated by SPEI joint venture shareholder, Site Group International which already operates a similar process plant in Myanmar and large immersive training facilities in the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia. 

Board chair of SPEI and Kumul Petroleum Academy Isaac Lupari expressed great satisfaction of the partnership arrangement between both institutions. 

Lupari said the partnership was part of the public-private partnership