These include onshore and offshore Taranaki and Canterbury, the offshore Northland, East Coast and Raukumara basins, and the Challenger Plateau, which is west of New Zealand’s Taranaki Basin and south of Australia’s Lord Howe Rise.

Crown Minerals has already started work on the onshore Taranaki blocks offer – the first in over four years – and the new Raukumara Basin – an offshore area north of the North Island’s East Cape.

The Ministry of Economic Development unit says it intends awarding new onshore Taranaki blocks in the third quarter of 2008, but the Raukumara blocks may not be awarded until mid-2009.

While the company has not started on other blocks offers, it says it intends doing so progressively through 2008, awarding permits from mid-2008 through to mid-2010.

Two months ago, Associate Energy Minister Harry Duynhoven said the New Zealand Government was investigating ways to attract more exploration activity to onshore Taranaki by aggregating former small permits into bigger blocks and also considering offering strata titles, allowing explorers to focus on different geological formations.

Last May, Crown Minerals started its third seismic survey, consisting of 2200km of 2D data to be acquired north of the Raukumara Peninsula, off the East Coast, and a further 300km of 2D off the southern Wairarapa Coast.

Today Crown Minerals petroleum investment manager Mark Aliprantis said the unit was looking to start the offshore Northland offer – as well as making some onshore-offshore Canterbury acreage available for Priority In Time applications – by the second 2008 quarter.

New Canterbury blocks might be awarded shortly afterwards, while new Northland permits should be awarded before the end of 2008, he said.

More offshore Taranaki and offshore East Coast blocks offers were scheduled to start in the third quarter of 2008 and to be completed about a year later.

Aliprantis said both the Raukumara and offshore East Coast basins were known to have all the necessary components for hydrocarbon generation, migration and trapping mechanisms.

He said the Challenger Plateau, which is far west of the New Zealand mainland in water depths of 500m to 1500m, was also interesting.

The Plateau covers about 280,000 square kilometres and is overlain by up to 3500m of Upper Cretaceous to Recent sediments. Crown Minerals is already reviewing data over that region, according to Aliprantis.

“We are processing that, studying that, and will offer a data pack to the industry to support a blocks offer if we think it is warranted,” he said.