In its December quarterly report released to the Australian and New Zealand stock exchanges this morning, NZOG said the Kupe joint venture was considering using one of the option slots with the Ensco 107 rig to drill the Momoho prospect, which could hold either oil or gas-condensate.
Wellington-headquartered NZOG says Momoho is located between the central field area (CFA) – in which the three development wells are scheduled to be drilled – and the more southern Kupe South-5 oil discovery.
The NZOG news follows operator Origin Energy last month confirming that it would use the Pacific Titan seismic vessel to conduct a seabed survey, primarily aimed at detecting any shallow gas, over part of the Kupe mining licence PMP 38146.
Origin executive exploration manager Rob Willink said at the time that the CGG-owned vessel was intended to shoot about 40km of high resolution 2D seismic over the CFA in late January. It would also survey the nearby Stent and Denby prospects.
Today, NZOG also said development activities for the $NZ980 million ($A840 million) Kupe gas-condensate project were continuing, with design work starting and construction of the offshore wellhead platform continuing in Thailand. Site works for the onshore production station were also ongoing.
Work on the horizontally directionally drilled (HDD) pipeline, connecting the offshore pipeline to the production station via a short pipeline running under coastal cliffs, was also about to start.
Later this year, the 107 jack-up rig will install the wellhead platform before drilling the three production wells that will be capable of producing in excess of the contracted sales gas rate of 20 petajoules per annum.
In addition, NZOG said construction activities on the $US225 million ($A292 million) Tui Area oil project continued worldwide, with good progress achieved on the subsea flowlines in France, mid-water arches in New Plymouth, and the Umuroa floating production, storage and offtake vessel in Singapore.
Completed equipment was scheduled to arrive in Taranaki from February to April, with oil production starting in April following the arrival of the Umuroa.
Commissioning of the project, with its initial production of up to 50,000 barrels of oil per day, was scheduled to be completed by June.
Last month, the Ocean Patriot semi-submersible rig ran and cemented surface casing on three of the four scheduled Tui development wells.
The Kupe (PMP 38146) partners are operator Origin with a 50% stake, Genesis Energy (31%), New Zealand Oil & Gas (15%), and Mitsui E&P NZ (4%).
The Tui Area (PMP 38158) partners are operator AWE with a 42.5% stake, New Zealand Oil & Gas (through its subsidiary Stewart Petroleum) (12.5%), Mitsui E & P New Zealand (35%) and Pan Pacific Petroleum (10%).
