Junior partner New Zealand Oil & Gas said yesterday that total production had reached 9.93 million barrels since production started less than eight months ago on July 30, and the 10 millionth barrel was expected to flow on Good Friday.
Field performance continues to be better than forecast, with production in February averaging 44,000 barrels per day.
The average associated water cut (just over 32%) has continued at lower rates than expected, allowing higher oil production to continue for longer than anticipated.
Operator Australian Worldwide Exploration has already revised Tui's production target for the year to June 30 upwards from less than 10 million barrels (pre-production) to 13MMbbl.
The field's 2P reserves have also been revised upwards by about 50% to 41.7MMbbl.
AWE is undertaking a further reserves review, which is expected to be completed by the end of June.
Managing director Bruce Wood said Tui has quickly become his company's cornerstone asset.
"We would expect the offshore Taranaki basin area to remain a key area for AWE into the future," he said.
"There remains strong upside potential in the offshore Taranaki region and AWE is committed to continuing our exploration in the region.
Thirty-one tankerloads have been offloaded from the floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel Umuroa.
Tui oil is sold into the east coast of Australia or southeast Asia and is typically sold against the Tapis benchmark, which is at more than US$110 ($A121) per barrel.
The Tui partners are operator AWE (42.5%), Mitsui E&P NZ (35%), NZOG (12.5%) and Pan Pacific Petroleum (10%).
