Chief operating officer John Sturgess said from Auckland today that Greymouth had contracted the Parker Drilling Rig 246 for the drilling of the Turangi-1 well in PEP 38762.

Turangi-1 would test the hydrocarbon potential of the Mangahewa Formation, to a depth of about 4000m, where a decision would be made to deepen the well to test the deeper Kaimiro Formation to a targeted depth of about 4500m.

Greymouth’s website still refers to PEP 38762 as “coveted Block J”, referring to Crown Minerals calling it such when they first announced the results of the last onshore Taranaki block bidding round a year ago. Greymouth said then that it planned “a deep gas probe”.

This prospective acreage effectively surrounds the onshore Pohokura South-1 wellsite. Commentators have told EnergyReview.net there is greater potential for further hydrocarbons to be found in the onshore/near-shore part of the Pohokura prospect than indicated by the “unsuccessful” deviated Pohokura South-1.

That well was plugged and abandoned by Fletcher Challenge Energy in mid-2001, though it did encounter some gas saturations and was not completely water-bearing. FCE chief operating officer at that time, Lloyd Taylor, told ERN he believed the Pohokura prospect “just nicked” onshore.

Sturgess today said the Parker 246 rig would move to the Turangi-1 wellsite following completion of the current Cardiff-2B sidetrack well (which is being drilled by operator Austral Pacific Energy and its PEP 38738 “deep” partners).

The now mothballed Methanex Motunui methanol complex is located in the north-west corner of PEP 38762 and main gas transmission pipelines bisect the permit.

Sturgess said PEP 38762 sat between the offshore Pohokura gas-condensate field and the Mangahewa deep gas field and the McKee oil field to the southeast, and it lay along the same inversion trend as those fields.