With over 70 years of manufacturing in Papua New Guinea, PNG Forest Products has long been an industry leader in Engineered Wood Products across the South Pacific, Australasia, and South East Asia.
Their extensive range of products and services for the domestic and export markets includes pressure-treated pine timber and plywood; kit homes and prefabricated buildings; modular bridges and bridge decking; and project construction and infrastructure development.
In fact, PNGFP is the largest supplier of timber housing and infrastructure projects in the South Pacific, having delivered more than 10,000 buildings.
PNGFP supplies PNG's only kit-set buildings engineered to both PNG and Australian building codes, preservative pressure-treated to provide full protection from termites and rot.
The construction division, NiuBuild, has built well over 2,000 buildings in PNG, including numerous mining and exploration camps, over 1,000 school buildings, and supplied hundreds of educational and health facilities throughout the country.
Innovation is at the core of the company’s success, as reflected by PNGFP’s Managing Director, Tony Honey: “We are producing and exporting some truly innovative and interesting engineered wood products that add value to an otherwise basic piece of plywood.”
“Modular bridges and decking into Australia and New Zealand; specialised railway bridge re-decking in Sydney; sound barriers along Australian highways and rail corridors; scarf-jointed bus and train floors for Australia, NZ and Malaysia—the list goes on.”
The company’s origins date back to the early 1920s, when Bulolo Gold Dredging Limited (BGD) was developing extensive alluvial mining operations in the Bulolo Valley.
To facilitate this large-scale operation, they needed sufficient housing in the valley for hundreds of workers and their families. BGD secured timber permits, established sawmill and joinery facilities, and set about building a town complete with a school and hospital.
As the operation grew, so did the town and the need for more timber. In the 1940s, the Forestry Department established a pine nursery and reforestation programme, planting 60,000 young pine trees in December 1948 and continuing each year thereafter.
When the mining operation scaled down, BGD formed Commonwealth New Guinea Timbers Ltd and constructed the largest plywood factory in the Southern Hemisphere. In 1954, plywood production and the export of product overseas commenced, signalling the birth of a new industry.
Today, PNG Forest Products employs over 1,500 Papua New Guineans and is committed to building a better future through sustainable manufacturing practices. All timber is sourced from renewable pine plantations managed by the PNG Forest Services. Sawdust and wood-chip waste from the mills are utilised to power biomass boilers for the veneer driers and kilns.
PNGFP also works in conjunction with the Department of Environment and Conservation to ensure that best environmental practices are maintained. PNG Forest Products is the only company in PNG to have achieved PEFC Chain of Custody accreditation based on 100% controlled wood.
PEFC (Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) is an international organisation that promotes sustainable forest management through independent third-party certification. PNGFP’s Chain of Custody certification demonstrates a commitment to sustainable forest management that is unique in this country.
Further emphasising sustainability, the company’s manufacturing facilities in Bulolo are powered by their own hydro power stations, in which they continue to invest heavily.
In 2023, PNGFP Hydro commissioned their fourth power station at Baime, feeding 11.6MW into PPL’s Ramu grid and raising their capacity to supply PPL to a total of 22MW.
The combination of a renewable timber resource, processed with sustainable hydro power and biomass heat energy, makes PNGFP’s engineered wood products truly and uniquely green.
