"We have worked this up and Matariki definitely now has drillable status," he said.
Todd currently holds 100% of the field, which lies in licence PEP 38494south of the substantial Maari oil field.
The company has previously said Matariki could contain 100 million barrels or more of crude oil and is "a Maari look-alike". Maari partner Horizon Oil believes Maari could hold up to 87MMbbl of recoverable oil.
The Maari partners are operator OMV NZ (69%), Todd Petroleum Mining (16%), Horizon Oil (10%) and Cue Energy Resources (5%).
Meanwhile, Todd has relinquished its 100%-owned offshore Taranaki licences PEP 38486 and 38487, near its Karewa gas discovery in PEP 38602 off Kawhia.
"We did the work we needed to do but didn't find anything worthwhile so we dropped the acreage," Tweedie said.
Crown Minerals is still processing with Todd's mining licence application for Karewa. The exploration licence expires at the end of next month.
