The Kupe gas development and the Tui and Maari oil projects are all making substantial progress.

Kupe has created a world record for horizontal directional drilling of a shore pipeline crossing, first Tui oil is due late June, and staff recruitment has started for Maari.

Contractors recently finished drilling the two Kupe tunnels -- one for the main gas pipeline and the other for the umbilical -- under the south Taranaki coastline for the $NZ980 million ($A870 million) offshore Taranaki gas-condensate project.

Origin Energy's Kupe project director Peter Ashford said construction of these tunnels had set a world record for the longest shore approach yet completed through horizontal directional drilling (HDD) with "forward thrust" installation of the pipe.

He said the HDD drilling “to enable the gas pipeline and umbilical to link the offshore platform with the proposed onshore production station" was very accurate, with both the umbilical and main pipeline subsea exit points being within 6m of their target 2.2km offshore.

Later this year and early next, the project will use a special pipeline laying method not seen in New Zealand before.

The Kupe project team has selected Port Marlborough at Picton, at the top of the South Island, for storing and later welding the 30km main gas pipeline and umbilical.

Delivery of the pipeline to the Picton spoolbase is scheduled to begin next month, with the pipeline being delivered in 12m lengths and later welded together into three individual 10km lengths.

The lengths of pipe will then be reeled onto the specialist pipelaying vessel Apache and transported from Picton to the south Taranaki coast for laying on the seabed floor.

The Apache is due to arrive in Taranaki waters in December and pipelaying is expected to start in early 2008.

Origin expects to complete the Kupe project by mid-2009. The field will provide New Zealand with about 254 petajoules of natural gas, 1.1 million tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas and 14.7 million barrels of condensate over 15 or so years.

Meanwhile, the Tui Area project partners have nearly finished the third of four planned production wells, with first oil expected from the $US245 million ($A295 million) development by late June.

The semi-submersible Ocean Patriot rig is presently completing the horizontal section of the Amokura-2H well, having drilled more than 1295m of the horizontal section in the oil reservoir.

The Diamond offshore drilling rig has already completed the Tui-2H and 3H horizontal wells for production, leaving only the Pateke-3H to be finished before commercial oil flows can start from that offshore Taranaki development.

Operator Australian Worldwide Exploration expects first oil from June 30 and initial production of up to 50,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd).

In mid-April, the Tui floating production, storage and offtake vessel, Umuroa, arrived off Taranaki and is now being prepared to receive up to 28 million barrels (MMbbl) of crude oil from the Tui, Amokura and Pateke oil pools over the next 10 or so years.

Norwegian company Prosafe will operate and lease the Umuroa, which can process up to 120,000 barrels of fluids per day, including 50,000bbl of oil, and has an oil storage capacity of 730,000bbl. Prosafe has also set up small shore-based facilities in New Plymouth for the project.

Further south, the Maari partners, headed by operator Austrian firm OMV, have said their $US419 million project is more than 39% complete and the Singapore conversion of the Andaman Sea oil tanker into the Maari FPSO Raroa now more than 55% complete.

Work of the wellhead platform (WHP) is more than 54% complete, with the critical sail-away window for the WHP still expected in September.

Global marine and personnel provider Offshore Marine Services – which set up shop in New Plymouth almost two years ago, buoyed by developments on the New Zealand energy horizon – is already advertising for staff to work on the Maari FPSO.

OMS – acting on behalf of Tanker Pacific Management, whicht will operate the Raroa – is calling for an offshore installation manager, production supervisor and maintenance supervisor to join the project during June or July.

The Raroa will be able to process up to 40,000bopd with a storage capacity of up to 646,548bbl of oil. Total gross initial oil production rate is expected to be about 35,000bopd, from the second quarter of 2008, with production continuing for about 10 years.

There are also now shore-based facilities in New Plymouth for the Maari project.

Total 2P (P50) recoverable reserves in the Maari petroleum mining licence PMP 38160 are estimated to exceed 50MMbbl of crude, with another 10-20MMbbl upside potential.

The Kupe partners are operator Origin Energy (50%), Genesis Energy (31%), NZOG (15%) and Mitsui (4%).

The Tui partners are operator AWE NZ (42.5%), Mitsui E&P NZ (35%), NZOG (12.5%) and Pan Pacific Petroleum (10%).

The Maari partners are operator OMV NZ (69%), Horizon Oil (10%), Todd Petroleum Mining (16%) and Cue Energy Resources (5%).