Associate Energy Minister Harry Duynhoven announced the latest blocks offer, which is seen by some industry commentators as a last-ditch attempt to attract sufficient companies, with bold enough work programs, to ensure this country survives relatively intact as it moves into the post-Maui era.
"Obviously it's already too late to find and develop a replacement for Maui before it falters completely in perhaps three to four years," said one commentator.
"Although there is some interesting stuff on offer, what's really changed? We still need the entry of a medium sized company with an aggressive work program which does not try cherry picking," said another.
This latest round includes 17 new blocks, nine offshore and eight onshore, and means the government has now opened up all the best exploration and most prospective acreage in the country - from northern offshore and onshore Taranaki, to deepwater Taranaki and the Canterbury and Northland basins.
Bids for this latest round close on October 31, while the Canterbury Basin blocks offer closes on May 30 and on September 30 for the deepwater Taranaki. The Northland Basin blocks offer is likely to open in late 2003-early 2004.
Changing market dynamics, including looming gas supply shortages and increasing gas prices, coupled with Taranaki's existing infrastructure should, hopefully, lead to the entry of such aggressive companies as Apache, Unocal or even Woodside.
The eight onshore blocks in the new bidding round cover a total area of 590 sq km (146,000 acres). The blocks to the east are near the Tarata thrust zone, which contains the TAWN gas-condensate and oil fields, as well as the Rimu-Kauri discoveries. Other onshore blocks are located adjacent to fields containing productive Eocene-aged Kapuni Group sandstones and Miocene-aged turbidites.
The nine offshore blocks, which cover an area of 12,180 sq km, or 3 million acres, lie on the continental shelf with water depth largely between 50m-200m. The area of the separate deepwater Taranaki Basin lies immediately to the northwest.
The offshore blocks are bounded to the south by the Pohokura gas-condensate discovery, to the southwest by the more recent Tui-1 oil discovery, and to the north by the Karewa-1 hydrocarbon "find", which Todd Energy wants though operator Conoco did not.
In addition, the Kora oil discovery of the mid-1980s is located near the centre of the offshore blocks. Kora proved uneconomic to develop, though there were some good oil flows recorded at that time. There have also been significant hydrocarbon shows at other wells in the area.
Duynhoven said the offshore area, largely north of New Plymouth, was possibly the most promising exploration theatre in New Zealand for finding large oil or gas accumulations.
Explorers were showing more interest than ever in New Zealand as an attractive international exploration destination, with the country currently ranked 13th by the IHS Energy Group in its 2003 international survey.
"The government has responded to this interest by issuing a large number of petroleum exploration permits," he added. There were now 86 exploration and mining permits on issue with eight more applications pending, compared with just 58 permits issued two years ago.
