Drilling for oil off S.I. to start soon

Press, 17 April 1982, Page 2

Drilling for oil off S.I. to start soon

Parliamentary reporter

. Four new petroleum prospecting licences off the coast of the South Island have been granted by the Minister of Energy (Mr Birch).

All the licences are for a maximum-term of five, years and involve an expenditure of $75 million. A further $lOO million could also be spent after the results of seismic testing and „ drilling are known. Three obligatory wells will be drilled in the four licence areas. Work under the licences is expected to start immediately.

Two of the blocks run south from Banks Peninsula down the coast as far south aS Dunedin and cover a combined area of .35,430 square kilometres. These have been awarded to a BP-Shell-Todd consortium. The two other licences awarded, which cover an equally large area, are immediately to the south of the South island and adjoin Stewart ■ Island. One of these licences has been awarded to a group of three companies — Ultramar Australia- (U.S.), Ltd, of New York, Weeks Australia, Ltd, of Melbourne, and Weeks International, Ltd, of Connecticut.

The other licence has been awarded to a consortium comprising Stewart Petroleum Company, Ltd (a fully owned subsidiary of New Zealand Oil and Gas), and a

group of American, Canadian and Australian companies. These are Seahawk Oil Australia, Ottawa-Energy Inc., Pan Energy Resources Inc., Petro Pacific Resources Inc., Sunlite International, the Texas Gas Exploration Corporation, and Sabra Petroleum, Ltd. Mr Birch said that the four licences had been granted as a result of the recently advertised round of southern’ offshore block concessions. . Some applicants had been unsuccessful, but he expected some of them to take up some of the areas not yet awarded, said Mr Birch.

"Petrocorp Exploration i will not participate on behalf of the Government in any of these licences, and so there will be no Government funding involved. However, the nation stands to benefit considerably from any discovery that is made, not only in terms of its effect on the nation’s economy and the royalties and tax that will accrue, but in the geological knowledge that will be gained,” he said.

In the last 12 months, licences had been granted for 17 offshore exploration pro-’ grammes and four programmes on shore, not counting the four announced yesterday, said Mr Birch.

Sixteen of the offshore licences were for explorations in the Taranaki Basir and the four onshore licences all applied to exploration ir the South Island. -