Auckland-headquartered Greymouth has announced it is acquiring the Nabors Drilling Rig 647, which was last in service on Barrow Island in Western Australia. The rig, which will operate in New Zealand as Greymouth Drilling Rig 2, is expected to be in Taranaki by the end of the month.

Chief operating officer John Sturgess said Greymouth would put the new rig into immediate service, appraising extensions to the historic Motoroa field in licence PEP 38464.

Sturgess said New Zealand was critically short of drilling infrastructure and the Greymouth Rig 2 would be a welcome addition to the New Zealand rig fleet.

Greymouth would also establish a stand-alone drilling company to provide drilling services to the New Zealand marketplace and to provide working opportunities for students graduating from the Taranaki Drilling School that the company established last year.

Sturgess also said the Kaimiro-7 ST1 well had discovered a new gas pool within the onshore Taranaki Kaimiro mining licence PML 38091. Flow testing of the well was underway and incremental gas reserves were being evaluated. Greymouth Rig 1 drilled the deviated well, reaching a total depth of 2001m in the Miocene-aged Mount Messenger sandstones.

In addition, Sturgess said commissioning operations for Greymouth’s onshore Taranaki Turangi discovery were well advanced, with gas export awaiting finalisation of Maui pipeline transportation and condensate offtake agreements. Greymouth expects to start exporting specification gas by next month at initial rates of 10 terajoules per day.

Meanwhile, the High Court has released the heavy-lift vessel Annegret seized late last month in an attempt to recover an estimated $NZ1 million ($A826,480) in port fees incurred while the ship was tied up for three months because of problems with the nearby Pohokura gas-condensate project.

Port Taranaki had started High Court proceedings to detain the vessel because of unpaid port dues, berthing fee and services. High court bailiffs boarded the vessel, serving a warrant of arrest on the ship’s master.

However, Port Taranaki chief executive Roy Weaver late last week confirmed his company had received full payment and had withdrawn further court proceedings.

The German-owned vessel is now scheduled to take the Pohokura jacket and topsides module out to where the jack-up Ensco Rig 56 is installing the riser and eight conductors as a precursor to the planned six-well offshore development program.