‘Only scratching the surface’

Press, 3 October 1979, Page 19

‘Only scratching the surface’

New Zealand should ha-.e at least 10 drilling rigs at work, most of them off-shore in the Great South Basin. It would cost about $1 million a day to keep them going, but they would find a commercial oilfield within five vears. That is the confident prediction of New Zealand’s only consulting petroleum geologist, Mr Alan Falloon. of Christchurch. Mr Falloon. who is also a geophysicist, is a Canterbury University graduate who has spent 10 years working with oil exploration companies in western Canada, six years on the North Sea oilfield, and five years with oil companies in Australia. Since he returned from Britain three years ago he has been a consultant to Hunt, Aquitaine and Petrocorp. working in the Great South Basin and most recently on the Toko well in Taranaki. Like other geologists, he says we have just not drilled enough holes. Our rocks are right, but we have to spend the money and do the drilling. In New Zealand, we have drilled about 50 holes since the end of the Second World War. That is only one a year. In the United States. Mr Falloon says, there are now 2000 rigs in action; in Canada there are 400; and in Aus-

tralia there are 50. “We have just been scratching the surface. Look at the vast areas yet to be explored. We have drilled only five holes well out in the Great South Basin, and two close in. The holes are 50 miles apart, which is an immense distance. “If we bring in 10 rigs, the chances of an oil strike soon are excellent. In my heart I know we'll find oil some day.” And when we do, the Government’s expensive outlay on other methods of producing fuel will have proved unnecessary. But there is no 100 per cent certainty in the oil search business, Mr Falloon concedes, so we must go ahead with plans for using Maui gas. Mr Falloon is not at all pessimistic about the difficulties of drilling and then producing oil from deep water in the Roaring Forties. “The North Sea is notoriously rough, and they used to say that it couldn’t be done there.” He says the oil exploration industry now has the capability of drilling in deep water, and also in very hostile environments. It would cost more to produce oil from a field in the Great South Basin than it does from the North Sea field, but it ■would be "absolutely worth while.”

“Water up to 6000 ft deep is prospective,” he says. “It is being done now in some parts of the world. The technology is there. Wells are being drilled off Newfoundland in nearly 5000 ft of water. One drilled off the coast of Spain in 4500 ft struck oil recently. “And as rigs are more able to drill in deep water, New Zealand looks more encouraging to the oil companies.” Mr Falloon considers that off-shore drilling on New Zealand's large continental shelf is the most premising oil prospect. The shelf has great thicknesses of sedimentary rock. “You can generally say,” he says, “from the tvpe of rocks that we would tend to find gas onshore and gas and oil offshore. “We really do have the right rocks for both oil and gas. Yes, New Zealand is faulted, but a few faults around the place can improve the chances. Faults can create oilfield. — some of the greatest oilfields in the world are complexly faulted. Sometimes it makes the search easier, because the oil can be trapped against the faults.” One day, says Mr Falloon, the map of New Zealand, which now shows onh the Maui and Kapuni

gas fields, could be sprinkled with those desirabl. little green blotcnes which indicate oil strikes. It has happened in many other places where even the experts were pessimistic. “In western Canada many geologists said oil would not be found, but Esso persevered and drilled 135 holes before striking oil. “Now look at the map of Western Canda. You would ask ‘How could they miss?’ “In sedimentary rocks, if you find one gas field you’ll find more — always. There is not one pUce in the world where that has not been the case. So we will get more Mauis, both large and small. “It disappoints me that people talk about Maui lasting only till the end of the century, without considering that more gas fields will be found. “England had no oil at •'! until a few years ago. Then there w'as a huge gas discovery in the Netherlands, and people began to wonder what might be under the North Sea. It proved to be a huge field.” Mr Falloon. says there is a lot of oil to be discovered in the world yet — at least as much as has already been found and probably a lot more. “The

world is not short of oil.” he says. “We’ve got 50 years’ supply. Some of the recent finds off-shore Mexico and Brazil have been immense. And offshore China is very promising.

"There are also new methods of recovering oil, so that in future we may be able to get as much as 80 per cent from a field, where early methods recovered much less.” He does not think we should turn our backs on Antarctica "New Zealand should be doing a lot more in the Antarctic by way of exploration and general geology. Otherwise, we may miss out. Our case for exploiting the resources could be reinforced by the work we do there.