Minority Kupe partner New Zealand Oil & Gas this morning said that last week's inclement weather, which had sea swells of up to 7m, had now abated.

The rig is expected to jack-up, as well as undertaking the necessary preparations to start drilling Momoho, over the next 2-3 days with drilling expected to start on June 15.

Momoho-1 is expected to take about 51 days to drill to a total depth of about 3142m below the rotary table.

Wellington-headquartered NZOG has previously said it expects the Momoho prospect will contain a combination of gas and liquids with estimated total recoverable resources of about 200 billion cubic feet of gas equivalent.

The Momoho prospect sits between two exploration wells drilled about 20 years ago - Kupe South-4 (KS-4), a gas-condensate discovery, and Kupe South-5 (KS-5), which flowed oil with some gas.

The hydrocarbon-water contacts for KS-4 and KS-5 exploration wells were at quite different depths, which have a significant influence on the potential quantity of oil or gas in the reservoir.

NZOG believes this issue, along with other geological factors, results in a wide range of potential outcomes for Momoho, including that no hydrocarbons, or sub-commercial volumes, are present.

The Kupe partners are operator Origin Energy (50%), Genesis Energy (31%), New Zealand Oil & Gas (15%), and Mitsui E&P NZ (4%).