Bids for both blocks offers closed on December 2 and a usually quick Crown Minerals has yet to make any announcements on the number or quality of bids received.
Rumours are rife in the industry that there were no bids for the three new blocks offered under the Offshore Outer Taranaki round, and only two bids from companies already active in New Zealand for the five new blocks offered under Offshore Northland.
“There’s been a deafening silence so far regarding the results of these blocks, and this from a government department which is usually quick to crow about how much interest there is in New Zealand from players overseas,” one explorer told EnergyReview.net today.
“The industry has a right to know the results of these and all other blocks offers.”
A second explorer said he too was wondering why Crown Minerals, through Associate Energy Minister Harry Duynhoven, had not yet said anything publicly about bids for these blocks.
“Northland was two years in the making and you would have expected more than just two bids.”
He said that “blocks overload” could be contributing to the apparent lack of bidding.
As well as Offshore Northland and Outer Offshore Taranaki, there were the four-block Offshore East Coast and seven-block Offshore Taranaki bidding rounds due to close about mid-February.
There was also the just-announced 40-block Great South Basin bidding round covering great swathes of the Southern Ocean, which opened in February and will most likely close next August.
Crown Minerals also has an onshore Taranaki blocks offer planned for the second quarter of next year and an onshore East Coast offer in the third quarter, which are anticipated to close in the last quarter of 2006 and first quarter of 2007 respectively. There are also rumours of an offshore Canterbury Basin blocks offer next year.
Perceived poor prospectivity and the small size of the New Zealand industry were also likely to be factors, the first explorer added.
“New Zealand will ever only be a pimple on the backside of the world’s economy and easy to ignore. The same, unfortunately, is true for the Kiwi oil and gas industry.”
Crown Minerals group manager Adam Feeley told ERN that announcements regarding Offshore Northland and Outer Offshore Taranaki would be made only after the completion of the assessment and selection process. He did not say when that was likely to be.
