The Chilean Government last Thursday awarded nine oil and gas exploration and production contracts that will require a minimum $US267 million ($A297 million) investment, according to Chilean Mining Minister Karen Poniachik.

Poniachik said Auckland-headquartered Greymouth had won four permits covering an area of 9000 square kilometres, one of which will be jointly explored and developed with Chilean state oil and gas company Empresa Nacional del Petroleo (Enap).

Apache won two blocks, one of which will be jointly explored and developed with Enap.

Pan American Energy (an operating unit of BP) and Total each won a block, and the ninth block was awarded to a consortium made up of International Petroleum Resources - a small company operating in Egypt - and Manas Petroleum Corp.

Greymouth said it had established a core petroleum position through winning these permits and was moving to establish a Chilean operating company in Punta Arenas.

“Greymouth now holds a significant petroleum acreage position in Chile, alongside Enap,” Greymouth chief operating officer John Sturgess said.

He said Chile’s Magallanes Basin had similarities with New Zealand’s Taranaki Basin and that Greymouth had identified gas and oil potential in the Straits of Magellan equivalent to the Turangi-Pohokura gas-condensate area in onshore Taranaki.

The Magallanes Basin, which is part of the same geological formation as Argentina’s Austral Basin, is home to all of Chile’s oil and gas production. It has produced over 500 million barrels of oil and 10 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Global methanol manufacturer Methanex, which operates the Waitara Valley plant in New Zealand, operates a larger facility in the Punta Arenas region.

There is little indigenous petroleum in Chile, with the country importing about 98% of its crude oil and 75% of its gas. Argentina is Chile's sole gas supplier.