“We believe New Zealand is precisely the place for Pogo to exercise its exploration muscles. Pogo intends to again be a winner and we intend to do that in New Zealand,” he told the more than 100 delegates and speakers to the conference, hosted by leading event organiser Conferenz.
AMEX-listed Pogo had recently sold its Gulf of Thailand assets – which included interests in 22 producing platforms, 458 producing wells and total production to date of 89 million barrels of oil and 463 bcf of gas – in several fields in Block B8/32 for US$820 million.
The Houston-headquartered company and its partners had had a 97% success rate in exploration and development, with remaining 3P reserves exceeding 2.5 tcf equivalent.
“We will be trying to replicate our Thai success in New Zealand, given time and successful drilling,” he said.
Pogo bounced into the New Zealand exploration scene over a year ago and has already shot the largest 3D seismic survey off Taranaki – a US$10 million shoot over 428,000 acres.
The data had now been processed and the initial results looked good, the company said. Pogo now had to firm up the best drilling locations over its three permits, with the first exploratory well planned for the second quarter of 2006.
But various problems, including fair and reasonable open access and rentals to the Maui gas pipeline, needed to be sorted out before Pogo would commit to any substantial exploration or, in the event of commercial success, development programs.
The open access regime for the Taranaki-Huntly Maui pipeline was due to be implemented on September 1, but has been held up while the Commerce Commission considers a request from Todd Energy for authorisation of potentially anti-competitive behaviour relating to the proposed regime.
The Taranaki Basin was geologically similar to parts of southeast Australia that had produced large quantities of natural gas, according to van Wagenen.
“A few tcf in Taranaki would suit us just fine,” he said.
Van Wagenen also said the existing fiscal regime for New Zealand petroleum was very reasonable.
“Improvements are not necessary to attract Pogo, we feel pretty much at home here”.
