Estimate Given Of Maui Field Size

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32383, 24 August 1970, Page 16

Estimate Given Of Maui Field Size

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, August 23. The gas reserves in the Maui field were sufficient to allow its name to be included in a list of the 15 largest gas fields in the world outside the Soviet Union, Mr H. R. Williams, the general manager of Shell-BP-Todd Oil Services, Ltd, said today.

Even in the Soviet Union, where reserves were second only to those in the United States, perhaps only 10 fields were larger, he told the 1970 forum of the Auckland Accountant Students’ Society. If New Zealand were a country of 30 million inhabitants, rather than less than three million, there would be no question but that the gas reserves of the Maui field could be used. But the limited internal demand, domestic and industrial, and the geographical i remoteness of New Zealand,’ made any possibility Of exporting gas in liquefied form completely out of the question ! at present. It was in meeting the; growing demand for electricity generation over the I next decade that the Maui! field might well be used. “Once the gas demand is established, the condensate could be separated,” he said. “But its contribution to New Zealand’s requirements of petroleum feedstocks will never be a major one.” Even if developed to capacity it was unlikely that the Maui field would contribute more than 10 to 15 per cent of the country’s requirements of petroleum feedstock, and even this would take a number of years to achieve. No less than 80 per cent of the energy reaching the sur-

face from the Maui field was in the form of gas and only 20 per cent in the form of liquids. The development of the Maui field and the provision of gas for, say, two major power stations, one at New Plymouth and one, perhaps, in the general Auckland area, might require up to slsom. It was to be hoped that negotiations on the price for Maui gas would soon reach a stage which would ensure the availability of capital not I only for development but for ’further exploration.