Heightened interest in oil prospects south of N.Z.

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34128, 14 April 1976, Page 22

Heightened interest in oil prospects south of N.Z.

(New Zealand Press Association) INVERCARGILL. April 13. Four American oil-exploration companies have a heightened interest in their investigation of the Great South Basin, to the south of New Zealand, after the seismological discovery of thick sedimentary rock in the basin.

Usually publicity-reticent executives at the Hunt International Petroleum Company office in Invercargill today confirmed the increased interest in the prospect and a reshuffling of the Southland exploration-licence areas.

The Hunt group consor-l tium is spending Sl2m on the' new Toroa No. 1 well. It named the licence area; the Great South Basin and is! now ready for record drilling; depths in’the inhospitable re-

igion—described as not unlike 'the North Sea oilfields — 'forming a crescent from j south-east of Stewart Island (towards the Auckland Islands land extending to Campbell ■ Island.

Toroa No 1 is the first well in the 863 licence area, and is said to be of “exciting interest’’ to petroleum geologists. Hunt Petroleum’s other licences around the former Parana 1 well have now been amalgamated into a huge licence area. The companies are: The Hunt International Petroleum Company, owner of the Penrod Rigs, Nos 70, 71, 72, 74 (on site off Southland), and 75, now being built. It is the largest privately owned oil exploration company in the world. The Phillips Petroleum Company, of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, a big marketing and refining company. Phillips engineers are' at present on the Penrod 74 rig at Toroa No. 1. Phillips Petroleum has North Sea interests. The Placid Oil Company, of! Dallas, a big oil-j exploration. marketing? and production company.' The company founded a large gasfield off the Netherlands. The Impel Oil Corporation of Denver, Colorado, a member of the Hunt Petroleum group and well known in America. It also has North Sea interests.

Penrod 74 was guided to its present site off Southland last week by satellite navigation.

The latest drilling off Southland comes after the abandonment of seven other wells in New Zealand waters: Resolution 1, off Canterbury: Turi 1 and Kupe 1, off Taranaki; Hawke’s Bay 1, off the east coast of the North I

Island; Surville 1 and Fresne 1, off Tasman Bay; and Parara 1, by Hunt Petroleum, in Foveaux Strait. A spokesman for the Hunt consortium said today that the Great South Basin exploration now beginning was an important project by American standards. Support facilities are flowing in from the Dallas offices of the consortium, and a German vessel Prospekta is making a seismological survey. It is believed that it is making preparatory investigations for as many as five drilling sites.-