At an investors update earlier this week, Tap said New Zealand was now a second area of focus for the company in addition to the Carnarvon Basin in WA.

Tap said it planned to drill the offshore East Coast Tawatawa-1 well, in PEP 38333, using the Ocean Patriot rig in the third quarter of this year. It also said it planned to drill Galleon South-1, in PEP 38259 off Otago, in the same quarter.

Both Tawatawa, a four-way dip closure of up to 40 sqkm, and Galleon South, had the potential to contain 2 tcf of gas and perhaps 200 million barrels of oil-condensate.

Tap also said it was targeting a total of 10 million barrels of oil-condensate (net to Tap) with its current onshore Taranaki drilling programme, which kicked off with the unsuccessful Honeysuckle-1 well in PEP 38741.

Other planned wells included Miromiro-1, Kakariki-1 and Hihi-1 in PEP 38748; Takehe-1 in PEP 38744; Hursthouse-1 in PEP 38745; and Supplejack-1 in PEP 38732.

Meanwhile, privately-owned Bridge Petroleum plans to drill the onshore Taranaki Radnor-1 well in PEP 38752 next month, says Crown Minerals.

It quotes former Westech Energy executive Ed Davies as saying Radnor-1 will test three individual Eocene-aged Kapuni sand deep gas targets identified on a 2003 3D seismic survey.

PEP 38752 includes the 1983 Stratford-1 discovery, which flowed at a maximum of 2.5 million cubic feet a day, though then operator Petrocorp considered that to be uneconomic.

Bridge holds a 66.67% interest in the permit with Denver-based Westech Energy holding 33.33%. Westech exploration manager John Frederick now heads Westech's New Zealand interests instead of Davies.