Crown Minerals granted ECA, which operates in New Zealand as Westech Energy, the new PMP 38159 licence earlier this month for an initial 10-year term with a commitment to well drilling and commercial production from next March.

However, ECA is tight-lipped about its plans for Surrey, which earlier this decade flowed commercial quantities of gas for about two years.

“We will not be addressing anything to do with this at this time, although things will become clearer in the next couple of weeks … this may turn out to be some very exciting news,” was all ECA business development vice president Denny McGowan would tell PetroleumNews.net from Denver this morning.

In mid-2003, Westech signed a two-year agreement with Vector subsidiary NGC for the purchase of at least 1 billion cubic feet a year of Surrey gas, while Shell New Zealand provided support regarding the transportation and export from Port Taranaki of the over 100 barrels per day of condensate produced from the shallow Miocene-aged Mount Messenger sandstones.

Westech already has a three-year mining permit for the nearby Windsor gas-condensate discovery, though that expires next September.

It is believed there are presently no flows from Windsor.

Meanwhile, McGowan said Westech’s Waitahora-1 well – in East Coast licence PEP 38346 that the company acquired last July – was progressing well.

“It’s fairly apparent there is something there; what that something is exactly we have yet to determine,” he said.

Waitahora is Westech’s first well on the East Coast for six years and is essentially a redrill of the Kauhauroa-1 discovery well that Westech estimated had an open-hole flow potential of up to about 70 million cubic feet per day of gas.

Westech drilled six exploration wells and five appraisal wells in the onshore East Coast Basin in the late 1990s.

All wells encountered significant gas shows, with two – Kauhauroa-1 and Tuhara-1 – discovering hydrocarbons in potentially commercial volumes.

In February, McGowan told PNN that Westech’s different operational focus and a better understanding of the changing New Zealand gas market should improve the company’s chances of commercial success this time around.