The report for 2006, which the government department released yesterday afternoon, says New Zealand’s total primary energy supply (TPES) decreased marginally, by 0.8%, from 747PJ in 2005 to 741PJ last year.
Net indigenous oil and gas, plus imported oil and oil products, still dominate the TPES picture.
Indigenous oil supply and imported oil and oil products accounted for about 275PJ (or 37%) of the total 2006 supply, while gas accounted for about 152PJ (21%). Imported oil and oil products increased by 0.9% (from 260PJ to 262PJ).
Last year only 7% of all feedstock to the New Zealand Refining Company’s Marsden Point oil refinery, near Whangarei, came from local crude and condensate. The rest (93%) came from imported crudes.
But domestic oil supply slipped from 20.02PJ in 2005 to only 12.96PJ last year, a drop of 35.3%. The last time New Zealand domestic oil production was lower was in 1975, four years before Maui came onstream, when the onshore Taranaki Kapuni field produced 8.28PJ of condensate.
However, production of up to 50,000 barrels of oil per day from next month from the offshore Tui Area development, headed by operator Australian Worldwide Exploration, should mean New Zealand’s oil self-sufficiency increases markedly during 2007. It should then more than double in 2008 when the OMV-operated Maari field comes onstream.
The MED report said domestic oil supply peaked at 61.72PJ in 1988, while peak gas production, of 247.07PJ, was achieved in 2001.
Domestic gas production increased from 148.56PJ in 2005 to 152.53PJ last year (an increase of 2.7%), due to production starting from the near-shore Taranaki Pohokura gas field, offshore Maui Ihi gas, and the onshore Turangi gas field.
Total petrochemicals consumption in 2006 was 23PJ, up 15% on the 20PJ consumed in 2005. This was due to Methanex Corporation’s sole surviving New Zealand methanol unit, the Waitara Valley plant, running at almost full capacity, together with the smaller Ballance Agri-Nutrients Kapuni ammonia urea plant.
