“Our first meeting was in Wellington last month, about 12 to 16 keen people who made some great presentations and want to move on this, make it happen,” TAG Oil president Drew Cadenhead told PetroleumNews.net today.
“As well as the operators group, we had some overseas people present, experts in deep tight-sand gas drilling and production, from Canada, Australia, the UK and the Middle East.
“We committed to move on to Phase 2 of the plan, which involves the combining of corporate data, joint analysis of that data, and suggested ways forward to optimise these tricky tight gas reservoirs.”
Cadenhead said this might involve under-balance drilling, horizontal wells, high-angle laterals, different fracture stimulation techniques, different completion methods, or any combination of these.
He said while the consortium welcomed the government’s offer to fund initial data gathering, not all operators supported the state’s initiative.
In the interest of consensus, the operators that supported the Government’s move decided to decline the funding.
“Our goal is to help alleviate future shortages and push back any decision about importing gas, be that LNG or CNG, not to argue about who sits where at the meeting table,” he said.
“So, in the interest of getting on with it, the operators agreed to decline the offer of funding and move forward on our own.”
In May, TAG Oil called for New Zealand deep gas explorers to join forces to coordinate onshore drilling programs and facilitate field development and production.
Immediately after the TAG announcement, Associate Energy Minister Harry Duynhoven said the Government proposed to use some of the additional $NZ6 million (about $A5 million) allocated for geotechnical data acquisition to help the industry overcome problems associated with deep gas (Eocene-aged or older) production in onshore Taranaki.
Cadenhead today said several previously drilled fields – including Cardiff, Radnor, and Kahili – were underperforming for various reasons.
These and other fields identified by other operators were likely to comprise a six- to eight-well continuous deep gas drilling program to start in the middle of next year.
