Authorities stay silent on oil find rumours

Press, 25 January 1988, Page 27

Authorities stay silent on oil find rumours

PA New Plymouth Rumours of another Maui-sized oil discovery off the North Taranaki coast could not be confirmed on Friday. Neither the oil company involved nor the Ministry of Energy would comment on the possibility the Zapata Arctic rig had struck a major gas and condensate (light oil) . reservoir last- week while drilling the Kora-1 well 65km north of New Plymouth. The well, in licence area PPL 38447, is being drilled for the operator, Arco Petroleum N.Z. Inc. Arco will not comment on its drilling programme, though oil industry sources say something must have happened on the rig during the past few weeks. It is believed Arco first thought it would hand over the rig to another U.S. oil giant, Amoco, about the middle of last month. The release date then slipped to the middle of this month, but it is now understood Arco is testing whatever formation it may have found and now will not release the rig until early next month.

Amoco plans to drill just 35km north of Kora-1 for a consortium of companies, including New Zealand Oil and Gas and

Oil Fields, Nl, in the adjacent licence area PPL 38449. There is no indication of what sized field may have been struck.

Another large gas field discovery would not be nearly as valuable as an oil find. New Zealand hds as much gas as it now knows what to do with and the situation will not change unless new major energy projects are established.

But there is always a ready market for oil and condensate. If a new field was reasonably accessible then production facilities could be built within two years. Another oil-condensate field would earn the oil company involved millions of dollars and New Zealand a similar amount in oil import substitution savings. As Arco is the only shareholder in the licence, apart from the Ministry’s statutory 11 per cent, and because it has no New Zealand shareholder, it has no obligation to release any information about its wells for up to five years, according to a Ministry spokesman. The Ministry would also not release any details about Arco’s reports to it, as they would be commercially sensitive, the spokesman said.