Papua New Guinea
2.5 Papua New Guinea Storage Assessment
Home

Papua New Guinea Storage Assessment

Except the ones belonging to the private transport companies (for short term operations) and the Defence Forces, there is nearly no warehousing capacity existing in the country. While the transport companies use their storage capacities to the upmost, some may be keen to provide ad-hoc support in time of emergencies. The only storage capacities found in the country are using containers. The containers are bought, most of the times.

This can be explained by various reasons:

    • The security issues, as warehouses are more fragile than locked containers
    • The costs, as the costs related to the whole building industry in the country are beyond understanding, nearly nobody is able paying for a proper warehousing system

Commercial Storage

The PNGDF Storage Capacity
The PNGDF has several storage capacities (usually huge warehouses) at central hubs locations (Lae, POM)
The PNGDF has a history of providing services to the humanitarian and development agencies (AusAID) for free temporary storage. During emergencies, upon prior agreement with the GoPNG, agencies may thus use those facilities.
Contacts with the authorities for accessing the PNGDF storage capacities need to go through the NDC.

Storage Used by Humanitarian Organizations

During Emergencies
Beyond using the very few PNGDF capacities at central hubs locations, a real problem of storage capacities exist in the country. In order to address that, and having noticed that airports areas are usually very large and secured, discussions held with the National Airports Corporation indicate that a real possibility exist to set up MSUs in airports premises. This will need to be further made official.

Contingency Stocks
Only a few agencies have a kind of pre-positioned stock of humanitarian items (= Contingency Stocks). Usually those agencies have 2 to 4 containers full placed in various locations in the country, most of the time close to the agency’s operations area.

Cold Chain

All PNGPCL managed ports have power capacities for reefer containers. However, this service is not intended for long time storage. As for any other goods, ports authorities allow only 5 days free storage in their premises.
The GoPNG is managing a network of central and areas “medical stores”. These stores are located in several key locations (Madang, Lae,Port-Moresby) and benefit from cold storage facilities. Humanitarian agencies may, upon prior agreement with the Department of health, access those facilities.

Jump to top