By Vaughan O’Grady
Energy company Santos is to partner with Papau New Guinea operator Telikom PNG in developing what is described as “an evolving telecommunications landscape in the liquid natural gas (LNG) and Santos project facilities and communities” through a ten-year partnership.
A co-location agreement was signed between Telikom PNG CEO, Amos Tepi, and Santos Country Chair PNG, Leon Buskens last week in Port Moresby. This collaboration will be an enabler for Telikom to expand its network into Santos’s upstream field sites by leveraging Santos’s existing telecommunications fibre and tower infrastructure.
Telikom PNG can now proceed with deployment of 4G LTE connectivity across Santos’ 14 communications sites and towers located at Kikori in Gulf Province, Ridge and Moro in Kutubu, Southern Highlands Province and Hides in Hela Province.
During the signing Buskens said that Santos was pleased to collaborate with Telikom PNG to venture into fibre infrastructure and 4G LTE to boost internet connectivity whilst driving innovation and economic growth at Santos’ field operations and LNG-impacted project areas.
Buskens said this initiative is in line with Santos’ commitment to the PNG government’s aspirations in its National Content Policy framework by supporting telecommunications as a tool to boost local landowner businesses and strengthen community connectivity.
Santos can now give Telikom permission to use sites to transmit from its equipment located on the transmission towers and will be given a redundant link via Telikom’s terrestrial network. Telikom will access Santos’ optical fibre link between Iagifu Ridge and Port Moresby, and take advantage of cost-effective network expansion into Gulf, Southern Highlands, Hela and Western Provinces.
Santos is a global energy company with operations across Australia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and the United States. It is a major LNG supplier in Asia.
