The pea-soup fogs that closed New Plymouth Airport for two days late last week – delaying helicopter flights to and from the jack-up Ensco Rig 56 and semi-submersible Ocean Patriot – have cleared and this week’s fine weather is hopefully a portent of better things to come.

Gas from the three deviated onshore-offshore Pohokura production wells started flowing to customers last August, but work is still being undertaken on the project’s offshore components.

The offshore drilling phase of the Shell-operated $NZ1 billion ($A890 million) Pohokura gas-condensate project is progressing well, with the first of six wells successfully completed and tested, and the Ensco rig now drilling the second deviated well.

First gas from these initial wells is expected to flow in March-April once the dive support-pipelaying vessel Rockwater 2 has finished installing the pipeline from the Pohokura platform to the onshore production station.

The Ensco rig is scheduled to spend until early 2008 drilling and testing all the offshore Pohokura wells, before heading north to drill the Awakino South-1 well, in licence PEP 38479, for operator US independent Discovery Geo.

Further south, the Ocean Patriot is about to start drilling the main horizontal production section of the Tui-2H well, having reached the top of the oil reservoir last week. It previously installed surface casing, cementing and subsurface trees on three of the four development wells.

“Overall, the Patriot drilling campaign has gone slightly slower than anticipated but within the range of expectations,” AWE managing director Bruce Phillips told PetroleumNews.net.

“The batch drilling of the top-hole sections and installation of the subsea trees went very well but we have been slower on the deeper section at Tui-2H.”

He said the four development wells – two in the Tui oil pool and one each in the Pateke and Amokura pools – would take about five months to drill and complete.

Phillips added that good progress was being made with the conversion of the Tui Area FPSO Umuroa at Singapore shipyards. Norwegian company Prosafe will own, operate and lease the Umuroa to the Tui partners.

“The internal turret is in place, all of the process modules have been lifted onto the deck and the pipeworks are underway … the vessel is scheduled to arrive in New Zealand waters in April.”

Phillips also said AWE hoped to get more than just four successful Tui development wells from its eight-well offshore Taranaki program.

AWE suspended the first Tui near-field appraisal well, Tieke-1, after only minor hydrocarbon shows, and has yet to drill the second near-field appraisal well, Taranui-1. As well, there are the scheduled Hector-1 (licence PEP 38483) and West Cape-1 (PEP 38481) wildcats.

“By the time this exploration program is finished, AWE and its co-venturers will have spent over $A200 million on exploration in the Taranaki Basin, so we hope we get something more than Tui,” Phillips said.

Meanwhile, the Maari partners, headed by operator Austrian firm OMV, are making good progress with their $US365 million ($A472 million) oil field development.

Minority partner Sydney-based Horizon Oil last week said overall the project was 28% complete and remained on schedule for production start-up in April 2008.

The wellhead platform fabrication was 38% complete and the Raroa FPSO conversion remained on schedule. Virtually all procurement activities would be completed this month, with the focus then shifting to the expediting of deliveries.

The Maari partners plan for the Ensco jack-up Rig 107 to drill five production wells, plus three water injection wells, in the offshore field south of Maui during 2007-08.

Lastly, the $NZ980 million Kupe project remains on schedule, with the jack-up Ensco Rig 107 expected to arrive in New Zealand waters in June to drill three development wells in the central field area (CFA) and up to three others in other parts of the Kupe permit.

The Pohokura partners are operator Shell Energy NZ (48%), Todd Energy (26%) and OMV (26%).

The Tui (PMP 38158) partners are operator AWE NZ (42.5%), Mitsui E&P NZ (35%), NZOG (12.5%) and Pan Pacific Petroleum (10%).

The PEP 38481-482 partners are operator AWE NZ (40%), Shell NZ (20%), OMV NZ (25%) and Todd Petroleum Mining (15%).

The PEP 38483 partners are operator AWE NZ (44.317%), NZOG (18.864%), Mitsui (22.728%) and Pan Pacific (14.091%).

The Maari partners are operator OMV NZ (69%), Horizon Oil (10%), Todd Petroleum Mining (16%) and Cue Taranaki (5%).

The Kupe partners are operator Origin Energy (50%), Genesis Energy (31%), NZOG (15%) and Mitsui (4%).