Greymouth chief operating officer John Sturgess said the Bonus Drilling Rig#2 was due to start the sidetrack later this week.

“This is a commitment well and is part of the Surrey production licence requirements,” he told PetroleumNews.net.

Greymouth bought the PMP 38159 production lease, which contains Surrey, and nearby PMP 38152, which holds the Windsor field, from Denver-based Energy Corporation of America – operating in New Zealand as Westech Energy – for undisclosed sums last May.

Greymouth also took over Westech’s 33.33% stake in another nearby field, Radnor (PMP 38157), and then took over as operator by acquiring more than 90% of the shares of private company Bridge Petroleum, which holds a 33.33% interest.

Sturgess said at that time that Greymouth planned to drill at least two wells in Surrey and Radnor over the next 12 months, as well as undertaking exploration drilling in the exploration licence PEP 38751, which surrounds Radnor.

Westech was granted a Surrey production licence last April, with a commitment to commercial production from next March.

Earlier this decade, Surrey flowed commercial quantities of gas for about two years.

The discovery Surrey-1 well also initially flowed about 100 barrels of oil per day from shallow Miocene-aged Mount Messenger sandstones and, four years later, is still producing about 50-60bpd that is trucked to the Omata tank farm near Port Taranaki.

Meanwhile, Sturgess also confirmed the smaller Bonus Drilling Rig#1 had plugged and abandoned Omoana-1, Greymouth’s second shallow well in the rugged hinterland of eastern Taranaki, after the PEP 38739 well hit basement at about 450m.