Operator Austral Pacific Energy and Genesis announced the completion of farm-in details last night, with Austral boss Dave Bennett and Genesis chief Murray Jackson saying they looked forward to working together in the expectation of securing a significant amount of gas in onshore Taranaki.

“This is an exciting time for our companies in New Zealand as we aggressively pursue value for our respective shareholders. It is well recognised that there is a need to drill further wells in New Zealand to meet the ongoing demand for natural gas,” the men said

“Genesis Energy is very pleased to be involved in the drilling of Cardiff-2, a well that is specifically targeted at finding new gas. Genesis is committed to ensuring it plays an active role in accelerating gas exploration activity in order to bring gas to the market as soon as possible. The contract with Austral Pacific demonstrates this,” Jackson added.

Genesis is funding the drilling and testing of the Cardiff-2 well, to a cap of NZ$15 million, in return for acquiring a 40% equity interest in respect of the deep petroleum rights in PEP 38738 and the right to purchase all gas from those reserves.

Operator Austral Pacific and partners plan to drill the Cardiff-2 appraisal well in the last quarter of 2004 targeting the Eocene-aged Kapuni sands reservoir in the Cardiff Deep gas prospect. Bennett has earlier said Cardiff Deep could contain up to 1tcf of producible gas.