All key performance indicators regarding efficiency, accessibility, reliability, flexibility and performance were met, he said.

A total of 114 petajoules of gas from different fields had been transported via the pipeline since last October.

The pipeline runs from Oaonui, Taranaki, north to Huntly, Waikato. Vector-owned and operated pipelines then take gas to energy-hungry Auckland, or to the Northland and Bay of Plenty regions.

Bott said third party throughput was expected to increase during the second year of open-access provisions.

Previously, only gas from the offshore Taranaki Maui field – owned by Shell New Zealand, Todd Energy and Austrian firm OMV – had been allowed to be transported in the pipeline.

Already, three new interconnection agreements have been executed for Taranaki gas. These covered Shell and OMV’s shares of gas from the recently commissioned near-shore Pohokura field, Todd’s share of Pohokura gas, and Todd’s onshore McKee and Mangahewa fields.

Todd is taking its share of Pohokura gas and liquids separately from that of Shell-OMV.

Bott said a fourth new interconnection agreement was imminent and covered gas from Greymouth Petroleum’s onshore Taranaki Turangi gas-condensate field.

He said there had only been three “pipeline events” and none had resulted in a failure of supply.

Two of these mishaps were caused by the Mokau compressor station being down but all gas had been delivered to market.

The third event related to the recent commissioning of the first phase of Pohokura gas production – gas from the three deviated onshore-offshore wells drilled during 2005-06.

Bott said Pohokura operator Shell Exploration New Zealand had, for a while, been injecting gas into the pipeline at pressures exceeding 48 Bar. This caused other shippers’ nominations to be curtailed because of the high pressure, but all scheduled gas had eventually been delivered.

The Maui pipeline was extremely cost efficient, with the internet-based OATIS (Open Access Transmission Information System) operated by Vector working well, providing some real-time line pack and large station metering data, as well as real-time peaking data.

OATIS currently cost shippers less than 1% of the average wholesale price of gas in New Zealand, and total Maui pipeline transmission costs were about 7%, or about $NZ0.355 per gigajoule.

The full Maui open access regime was expected to be implemented within a few months, with the MDL commercial operator performing full balancing, offering “puts” for increased demand and “calls” for increased pipeline supply.

Future arrangements were under review and a tariff revision was expected as the pipeline had not been revalued since 2002.

The review of operational expenditure was expected to result in tariff increases of 10-20% over the next three years.

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