The company plans to drill one well in Canterbury; the rest will be in Taranaki. It also plans to undertake a seismic survey in the North Island's East Coast Basin.
The wells fall into three groups – Cheal joint venture wells, Taranaki deep gas consortium holes, and TAG-operated wells, TAG president Drew Cadenhead told PetroleumNews.net.
The Cheal partners, operator Austral Pacific Energy TAG and Arrowhead Energy, plan to drill at least five development-exploration wells in and around the Cheal field in an effort to extend the Cheal oil pool.
“We will drill two wells from the Cheal A well site and at least three from the B well site,” Cadenhead said.
Last month, Austral said the Cheal partners planned to spend $NZ25 million ($A22 million) developing the small field, in PMP 38156, with first oil from the 4.4 million barrel find expected to flow through permanent production facilities from early next year.
Meanwhile, the Taranaki deep gas consortium has already committed itself to a six-to-eight-well continuous drilling program starting in mid-2007.
Cadenhead said these deep gas wells included Kahili-2 in PMP 38153 and two further wells in the Radnor licence PMP 38157, in addition to the Radnor-1A sidetrack presently being drilled. There were also three other prospects called Karo, Waitoriki and Angus.
“All are ready to be drilled,” Cadenhead said. “We just need to secure a rig to drill them.”
In another program, TAG plans to drill a follow-up well, Ratanui-1, to last year’s small Supplejack gas-condensate discovery in PEP 38741.
Ratanui and the two existing Supplejack wells should provide a reserve base sufficient to warrant economic development.
TAG would also drill Mangamingi-1 in PEP 38758. After shooting a 2D seismic survey there earlier this year, TAG had now contracted the Ensign International Rig 19 to drill the Mangamingi well in that rugged region.
The only previous wells in that part of eastern Taranaki had been the 1964 Kiore-1, drilled by Shell BP, Todd, and Greymouth Petroleum’s 2004 Tiwakawaka-1.
Cadenhead said TAG was working up drillable prospects in several onshore Taranaki permits, including PEPs 38741, 38732, 38745 and 38751 where it was planning further seismic work.
“We hope to progress these to drillable prospects in the next year,” he said.
TAG had also recently taken “a huge position” in the onshore part of the East Coast Basin, with its Wairarapa licences PEP 38341-342 covering about 400,000 hectares.
“We just funded the first modern 2D seismic program in that basin. Look for activity there in the next year,” he said.
He said Canterbury, both onshore and offshore, continued to be another frontier focus for TAG.
TAG had completed three separate seismic programs there in the past year, including data shot over the onshore PEPs 38260-256 and the offshore PEP 38258.
The company planned to spud its first onshore Canterbury well, Kate-1 in PEP 38260, before the end of the year. The Kate prospect was a 15 square kilometre surface anticline, with oil seeps around it.
“We're still not sure what the heck is down there,” Cadenhead said.
“There are no other nearby wells to help us correlate our new seismic, so we need to drill.”
Cadenhead said TAG had similar sentiments for offshore licence PEP 38256. The company had identified a couple of prospects and shot seismic over them. TAG would now try to arrange at least one, possibly two “strat-tests” into the top prospects before the permit expired next August.
“TAG has a lot of faith in the prospectivity of New Zealand,” Cadenhead said.
“There are many undrilled basins with oil and gas seeps and that is hard to find elsewhere in the world.”
