Downstream
Competition
Our main competitor in the wholesale and retail distribution business in Papua New Guinea is ExxonMobil. We also compete with smaller local distributors of petroleum products. With the decision of our competitors early in 2010 to partly import directly from overseas refineries and the consequent cessation of the joint industry shipping arrangements, it is difficult to accurately gauge our market share. Our competitors source small quantities from our refinery from both the refinery gantry 19 for the Port Moresby market and by tanker vessel for the markets outside Port Moresby.
Our major competitive advantage is the large widespread distribution network we maintain with adequate storage capacity that services most areas of PNG. We also believe that our commitment to the distribution business in Papua New Guinea at a time when major-integrated oil and gas companies exited the Papua New Guinea fuel distribution market provides us with a competitive advantage.
However, major-integrated oil and gas companies such as ExxonMobil have greater resources than we do and could if they decided to do so, expand much more rapidly in this market than we can.
