Greymouth principal John Sturgess told EnergyReview.Net today that the first of perhaps four in-fill wells this year was about to start from the Kaimiro G well site near the field's production station.

"Although we had done some above ground work during the past year, this will be our first subsurface program and we will be targeting some shallow Mt Messenger bright spots identified by earlier seismic."

Early production from the field, which was discovered by Fletcher Challenge Energy subsidiary Petrocorp in 1981, had been from the Eocene-aged Kapuni formation. Present production was centred on the shallower Miocene-aged Mt Messenger sands, which were discovered in 1988.

Greymouth's $NZ2-3 million development program would hopefully ensure future production from these sands, found scattered over much of onshore Taranaki, would continue for many years. "This is consistent with the old FCE plans to extract more value from this field," said Sturgess.

The OD & E Rig 19 would be drilling the first in-fill well and take about two weeks to reach the 1300-1600m target depth. The well would be deviated towards the eastern margin of the field and the adjacent Ngatoro-Goldie oil fields.

"This is an area not yet tested, but identified by FCE as the probably one of the most prospective parts of the field."

Last March Greymouth agreed to purchase the Kaimiro field from Shell New Zealand as part of the Commerce Commission's required divestments by Shell before it bought the New Zealand assets of FCE.