The Maui Joint Venture today announced that the Maui A platform is scheduled to be shut down, this time for planned regular maintenance, for approximately nine hours from 7am March 22.
Spokesman Simon King said the work was unrelated to the recent generator problems on the Maui A platform and part of planned maintenance for the Maui facilities.
Although the shutdown would mean no gas production from the field over the nine hours, the joint venture did not expect the government's gas customers to be affected as there would be sufficient "linepack" gas in the North Island pipelines to meet anticipated demand.
Nevertheless, Mr King said the partners had informed the government of the March 22 outage so it could keep its customers fully informed.
The fact that major user Methanex is now operating at less than 40% capacity, with only one of three north Taranaki methanol trains operating, will help other users during any future planned or unplanned shutdowns at Maui.
Contact Energy and the Major Electricity Users Group (MEUG) both criticised the limited information released by the partners during last month's three emergency shutdowns at the Maui A platform.
Contact chief executive Steve Barrett said his company had registered its strong concerns about the Maui outages with the government, as its contractual supplier from the Maui field, and with the field majority owner, Shell New Zealand.
MEUG executive director Ralph Matthes said Maui operator Shell Todd Oil Services needed to fully explain the incidents and wondered if the government would be seeking a remedy in terms of its contract to purchase Maui gas.
