Project leader Beate Leitner says the four-year project will systematically map the subsurface of the basin using modern software to provide the big picture view of geology and prospectivity.

“The end product will be more information-rich, more precise, and more accessible than existing resources,” she said.

“The initial focus is on the offshore part of the basin, where our team of geoscientists is compiling comprehensive information from the seabed down to basement rock.”

The first phase would involve the offshore Kupe gas-condensate field. The Kupe area seismic facies would be just one of 20-30 seismic horizons to be systematically interpreted to provide detailed seismic facies maps for basin modelling.

A joint venture, headed by operator Origin Energy, is planning a NZ$800 million project to develop Kupe, with first gas scheduled sometime in 2008.

During the second and third years, offshore mapping would be finished and efforts focused on the onshore Taranaki Basin. In the fourth year, basin-wide maps and hydrocarbon migration models would be developed and available as interactive digital data.

Ultimately, all of New Zealand could be included in the digital atlas, much of which would be available over the Internet, according to Leitner.

Data outputs would be available in digital format and would be continuously updated once new well and seismic data became available.

These would include horizon and fault interpretation, time and depth structural maps, paleo maps, wellsheets integrating revised stratigraphic interpretation, synthetic well ties, regional well and seismic correlation panels, and basin models.

The project would provide a top-quality coherent regional framework that could be used for more detailed local-scale projects. The mapping project would provide a highly valuable resource for exploration companies in the region.

“This project will provide a knowledge platform that will be valuable to a wide range of end users for years to come,” Leitner said.

“In particular, exploration companies will find the digital atlas invaluable when undertaking more detailed local prospectivity studies.

Up to 20 GNS geoscientists would be involved at various stages throughout the duration of the project.

Leitner said no likely project costs were available as GNS Science had yet to sign a funding contract with the government’s Foundation for Research Science and Technology (FRST), but the potential economic return [of the project] to New Zealand iwas considerable.

All petroleum data becomes publicly available in New Zealand after five years of submitting reports to the government, but Leitner said GNS was seeking the co-operation of the industry in terms of data-sharing, fast-tracking regions of interest, and steering the development of the project.

GNS will present the first results of the project, as well as looking for project partners, at the 2006 New Zealand Petroleum Conference in Auckland next month.