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Mobil lease to expire soon
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Posted on Feb 18 2020
With Mobil Oil Mariana Islands, Inc.’s land lease of 40 years at the airport nearly expiring, the company has approached the Commonwealth Ports Authority over a year early with a proposal to extend its lease.
Last week, Mobil Oil Mariana Islands president Jimmy Tim Chau Hau presented their land lease extension proposal at the CPA Airport and Financial Affairs Committee meeting. Mobil’s land lease agreement for the land near the Francisco C. Ada-Saipan International Airport is expiring in May 2021.
“The presentation today was to present the lease, which is expiring in May 2021 and what we want to do is just highlight that to the board for the board to decide on the appropriate actions they need to take,” he said.
Hau explained that Mobil wants to extend its lease in order to continue operating their business with the aviation industry.
“We sort of have a big presence in the CNMI and we want to participate in the growth of the CNMI but to do that we need to continue to do all the various businesses and aviation is one of our main businesses,” he said.
Hau said that they presented their extension proposal early to give CPA ample time to decide on their proposal and so that operations are not interrupted.
“We wanted to highlight this to the board early so there is no interruption to the business of aviation and the airlines, which is very important to Saipan. That’s sort of why we’re setting out early, so that the appropriate measures can be taken, so there’s a smooth transition,” he said.
Hau also mentioned that Mobil is also having its own struggles as a result of the novel coronavirus outbreak.
“We hope that we will go over this bump soon. We think the bump will be temporary and things will improve thereafter. It’s a global thing at the moment, and it’s going affect the whole economy and it affects business, the government, and everyone in the community so that sort of prevents the CNMI from striding and developing its businesses,” he said.
