Early rumours had Greymouth drilling Kaimiro-19 - its first well as field operator - within the mining permit PML 38091 but close to the boundary of the adjacent Goldie oil prospect within the adjacent Ngatoro PMP 38148 licence in onshore Taranaki.
More recent rumours include Greymouth, prior to drilling, supplying Crown Minerals with a bottom-hole location that was extremely close to the Goldie boundary, but the company not subsequently filing those bottom-hole co-ordinates during the latter stages of the Kaimiro-19 drilling program. Daily filing is required under the Crown Minerals Act section 40, clause 2.
This cannot be confirmed, however, as Crown Minerals has not responded to EnergyReview.Net requests for information.
However, Greymouth principal John Sturgess today told EnergyReview.Net that all the usual data had been filed and that the well completion report should be sent to Crown Minerals within a few weeks.
"There is nothing unusual in all this; there are multiple small pools within the Kaimiro and neighbouring Ngatoro licences, some of which may overlap, we don't know yet."
If future drilling in the Kaimiro, Ngatoro or Goldie fields showed there was some overlap of small pools, then some sort of unitisation process should be worked out.
He said Kaimiro-19 had struck at least 4PJ of gas - enough to fuel New Zealand homes for a year - in the shallow Miocene-aged Mount Messenger sands and that Greymouth was still investigating whether it could produce oil from a deeper interval. It had been rumoured that this lower zone had produced up to 160 bopd during initial testing.
Greymouth could drill up to four in-fill Kaimiro wells this year, targeting primarily some shallow Mt Messenger bright spots identified by earlier seismic.
Greymouth and Goldie operator Indo-Pacific Energy are due at the Wellington High Court on Monday, St Patrick's Day, to have Justice Wilde consider their various claims regarding the operation of the Goldie oil field.
Indo-Pacific chief executive Dave Bennett has said the claims cut to the core of established joint venture operating practice, not only in New Zealand but in much of the rest of the world.
