“The new seismic data acquired by Crown Minerals has revealed highly encouraging features and anomalies which will create worldwide interest in the potential of New Zealand,” he said.

Earlier this year, the Norwegian Multiwave Pacific Titan vessel shot about 100,000 square kilometres of 2D seismic off the East Coast, from Wairarapa to Bay of Plenty, as part of the government’s NZ$15 million incentives fund to lift the country’s exploration levels.

Survey results were provided to the industry free of charge to support future block offers, encourage further exploration in those areas, and increase both knowledge of and confidence in New Zealand’s petroleum prospectivity, said Duynhoven.

“The project – which was a world first – has already delivered huge benefits to the exploration industry in New Zealand,” he said.

The data had highlighted significant geological features, which were very encouraging in terms of potential, and were in water depths and locations that would shorten the time to bring any commercial discoveries to market, according to the minister.

Duynhoven said the concept of providing seismic data to explorers as part of a bidding round had already attracted worldwide interest. Having data freely available had helped improve perceptions about New Zealand’s exploration potential, which had been the single biggest barrier to attracting new explorers to New Zealand.

“We have spoken with explorers who had previously never considered New Zealand for exploration, but are now in serious discussion with joint venture partners regarding the content of possible bids.”

Duynhoven said while companies wanted their interest to remain confidential until the conclusion of bidding, the scale and number of interested companies was unprecedented and several were world leaders in the exploration industry.

“While there is no certainty yet as to who may bid, I am very hopeful we will have a level of exploration next year which has never been seen before in New Zealand," he said.

The government had to promote frontier petroleum basins if large-scale oil and gas reserves were to be found to replace the rapidly declining Maui field off Taranaki, accrdoing to Duynhoven.

“If domestic gas is to be an integral part of our medium-term energy security then it is critical we look for the larger scale prospects in the frontier petroleum basins," he said.

To date no hydrocarbon discoveries have been made off the East Coast. Several small gas finds have been made onshore but none has proved commercial.