Sydney-headquartered NZOG admits, in its September 2002 quarterly report, that the delays to the planned Tabla-1 well and the scheduled waterflood project within the Ngatoro field are because of joint venture disagreements.
NZOG also says an outside expert is being called in to settle the proposed waterflood project for the Ngatoro reservoir. Earlier this year the Maui parties called in independent expert Netherland Sewell and Associates to settle the Maui redetermination row.
"It is hoped that the joint venture parties will shortly be able to agree on a rig contract to drill Tabla as NZOG and Indo Pacific remain ready and willing to drill the Tabla prospect," says the NZOG report.
The Tabla prospect, within has the Ngatoro mining licence PMP 38148, has the potential to contain as much as 1.5 million barrels of oil reserves, but NZOG says, drilling has been delayed due to joint venture disagreement on the rig tendering process.
It is known that NZOG and Indo-Pacific had agreed on a rig tendering process, and indeed a preferred rig, when Greymouth asked for the whole process to be revisited.
NZOG also says the waterflood project for the Ngatoro reservoir, which it had planned for some time, was now delayed because of "changing ownership" of the permit, that is, the entry of Greymouth.
Injection of water into the main reservoir should reverse the reduction in pressure and result in "significantly more" oil - as much as another 2 million barrels - being recovered than would otherwise be the case. This would have substantial benefits to NZOG and its co-venturers, says the report.
NZOG and Indo Pacific approved the operator's proposal for this work last May but differences with Greymouth Petroleum continue. "NZOG is therefore seeking a determination by an independent expert as to the most effective modus operandi."
Action should be assisted by the fact that Crown Minerals has directed the joint venture to submit a waterflood proposal for approval by no later than January 2003.
EnergyReview.Net reported the first hints of the Ngatoro discord several months ago, recording Indo-Pacific chief executive Dave Bennett as confirming the postponement of the Goldie-2 appraisal and Tabla-1 exploration wells within PMP 38148.
The NZO report also confirms recent comments by Genesis Power boss Murray Jackson about the proposed development of the marginal Kupe gas-condensate field off south Taranaki. The major prerequisites for development of Kupe are access to the Maui pipeline for gas transport and contractual arrangements to deliver in the order of 20 Petajoules of gas per annum from the field.
The initial development of Kupe will occur within the central area of the field where three wells already have confirmed reserves. NZOG supports the concept of a low cost development using a basic offshore production facility and a single pipeline to transport oil and gas streams to shore. Once production is under way, it would be logical to test the undrilled Stent and Marshall within PML 38146, which could increase the oil and gas reserves by up to 1Tcf gas and 75 million barrels of oil and condensate
The report also says the Ocean Bounty rig now operating in New Zealand waters could be used to drill the Tui prospect in PEP 38460 early in 2003. NZOG exploration manager Eric Matthews told EnergyReview.Net that farm-out negotiations with an un-named party, believed to be Trans-Orient Petroleum, were continuing and that he hoped these would be concluded in time to utilise the Ocean Bounty.
The Tui prospect had the potential to contain 700 million barrels of oil in the Eocene-aged Kapuni D beach sands, 400 million barrels in the Miocene-aged Moki sands and 50 million barrels in the Kapuni F sands. Apart from Tui, other prospects with major potential in the permit area included Hector, Tahuroa and Pukeko.
NZOG added that reprocessing of seismic in the new PEP 38472 - which NZOG shares in association with operator Austrian firm OMV Petroleum, had meant the upgrading of two main leads - Manuka in the northwest of the permit and Gamma in the southeast.
Finally, NZOG said it and Origin Energy had recently been awarded PEP38478, adjacent to PEP38729 where NZOG had drilled the now-suspended Opito-1 well earlier this year. The large Mangatoa gas prospect (which could hold up to 5tfc of gas) covered parts of both PEP38729 and 38478 and NZOG would reprocess existing seismic data and integrate this with data from Opito-1, to gain a more confident definition of the Mangatoa prospect which could be drilled from onshore.
