When Contact and Genesis - this country's largest gas users - called for expressions of interest earlier this year they received over a dozen inquiries. Then the Kiwi companies called for requests for proposals that would take them down the critical path of selecting the preferred LNG receiving location, likely landed costs, environmental effects and a preliminary engineering study.
Contact spokesman Pattrick Smellie has confirmed to EnergyReview.Net that bids close this Friday, though he has declined to comment further.
Major players - such as Royal Dutch Shell, Total and ConocoPhillips, along with Fluor Daniel and Bechtel - are believed to be submitting detailed proposals on their likely Kiwi LNG project, and it is hoped Contact and Genesis will make an announcement on those bids before Christmas.
While NGC says any talk of LNG importation is premature, it is responding to inquiries regarding the use of its extensive high-pressure North Island reticulation network and is helping with feasibility studies.
"Our pipes would be used by any feasible project, so it's reasonable we would assist those considering it, though NGC's commercial view is that LNG isn't needed in NZ because there's enough indigenous gas; that hasn't changed," NGC chief executive Phil James told ERN.
Last month James told ERN that there were several significant Taranaki gas discoveries essentially waiting to be developed and that NGC could help bring them onstream. "We do not share that (Contact-Genesis) view yet and believe it's too early to say LNG is a realistic option, primarily because of cost," he said then.
Industry commentators, however, query that attitude. "NGC is in denial; it may be LNG or it may be coal, but it will not be indigenous gas," said one.
"There may be a lot of deep gas in Taranaki, but it is likely to fractured, tight gas from reservoirs more complex than Kapuni. It's certainly not going to be easy, like picking low hanging fruit; this is the stuff that's not yet ripe and you will need scaffolding to get to."
Coal presented its own problems, with likely huge open-cast lignite mining and greater greenhouse gas emissions. Even if aluminium producer Comalco closed its Bluff aluminium smelter, effectively increasing the amount of available electricity by about 30%, there would still be the problem of transporting power north over an aging Cook Strait DC cable system.
Another commentator said that even if Contact and Genesis moved swiftly on their preferred LNG project, there could two years of possible power shortages through insufficient gas.
"Resource consents might not start until mid-2004 and could take up to two years, and construction of any LNG receiving facility could take three years.
"So the earliest LNG could be onstream might be mid-2008, two years after Maui might be finished. Pohokura is scheduled to start producing from mid-2006, but it's only a third the size of Maui."
He added that NGC needed to be very careful it did not get "left out in the cold" over LNG. If an LNG receiving facility was located in Taranaki, then an additional pipeline, perhaps a non-NGC one, would be needed from Huntly to Auckland.
If an offshore receiving facility was considered, perhaps in the Firth of Thames or Hauraki Gulf, that might also preclude much NGC involvement.
