Crown Resources manager Adam Feeley's impassioned plea to delegates during the closing session convinced some that the government was finally going to take action over this country's looming gas gap. Others, however, remained in doubt as to the effectiveness of government assistance to help the industry and the country through the post-Maui challenge.

GeoSphere director Mac Beggs said the many in the energy industry regarded the Ministry of Economic Development's Energy Outlook Report to 2025, released late last year, as wishful thinking. The government needed to be more pro-active and Crown Minerals needed to promote and encourage oil and gas exploration.

He also suggested a dovetailing of the Aussie and Kiwi exploration sectors in terms of fiscal regimes and work programs - "explorers look to Australasia as one theatre already".

OMV NZ managing director Steve Hounsell said OMV had already spent about NZ$350 million in New Zealand and could spend another NZ$500 million or so, given the right investment environment and a strong government commitment to oil and gas.

He said the most shocking statistic to come out of the conference was this country's self-sufficiency in oil had dropped from about 60%, in the late 1980s, to now be less than 30%.

The E&P industry needed "jump starting" as significant upward hydrocarbon reserves revisions were unlikely and acquisitions or trades did not add to the total petroleum reserve base.

"If anything else this conference has confirmed the struggle to move beyond Maui," said NGC energy sales manager Andrew Knight.

He warned that if gas prices moved to unsustainable levels - some earlier speakers had suggested perhaps as high as NZ$10 per Gigajoule - consumers would turn to alternative fuels, to the detriment of the gas industry.

Austral Pacific chief executive Dave Bennett said the government needed to recognise oil and gas as "good" and necessary. The MED's latest energy outlook was "a logically flawed exercise in the unthinking worship at the altar of renewables and we are living with the consequences of such ideologically based inertia."

The government was not just the owner of Crown resources; it should also be a participant, reinvesting petroleum royalties into baseline exploration studies. "The Aussies recognise this, so why can't we?"

The government should also have its own experts and opinions on such things as appropriate field management.

Bennett also called for a review of the royalty regime, to make offshore or deep gas exploration more viable, including the cancellation of the ad valorem royalty (AVR) and reliance on the accounting profits royalty (APR).

"Most of all I would like to see the government recognise that exploration is a vital activity, and provide mechanisms to encourage private investment in exploration, as is widely the case in North America."

Feeley said Crown Minerals accepted the difficulties of exploring in New Zealand. "However, publishing glossy colour brochures about the merits of New Zealand to all and sundry will get us nowhere."

He admitted Crown Minerals needed to be a better oil and gas advocate to government ministers, to streamline the investment environment, and to more effectively manage the Crown's minerals estate.

He said Crown Minerals would urgently review exploration and production incentives, with an interim report available within a month, and a national exploration strategy completed by June.

There would also be a review of the acceptable frontier offers (AFO) and general blocks offers to provide a clearer, simpler compliance regime. Better geotechnical databases made available.

"We have considerable common ground and common interests, let's work together for a new regime."

With the Crown Minerals staff levels being cut last year from 27 to 16, how Feeley actually plans to effectively implement some of these promotional activities remains to be seen.