New Zealand’s petroleum and mining regulator has granted a 10-year petroleum mining permit in the onshore Taranaki region as the country looks to boost natural gas supply to the domestic market.
The regulator, New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals (NZP&M), on Thursday granted Matahio NZ Onshore Limited a 10-year petroleum mining permit in the onshore Taranaki region for the Puka field, a small oil and gas field discovered in 2012. Included in the permit area is the promising Oru prospect, the New Zealand government said.
The new petroleum mining permit is expected to “bring additional natural gas to the domestic market over the next decade and generate valuable export earnings from new oil production,” according to New Zealand’s Resources Minister, Shane Jones.
Matahio has estimated that the recoverable reserves from the Puka discovery are approximately 170,000 barrels of oil and 1.3 billion cubic feet of gas. An independent assessment of the Oru prospect estimates prospective resources of 1.8 million barrels of oil and 1.2 billion cubic feet of gas.
“At a time when New Zealand faces ongoing energy security challenges due to our declining gas reserves, every new source helps,” Minister Jones said in a statement.
“Gas will continue to remain critical to our energy mix in the decades to come. It supports electricity generation during periods of low hydro inflows and renewable generation, and it provides energy and feedstock for many businesses that are important to our economy,” the official noted.
Currently, all gas produced in New Zealand is used domestically by industrial users and as a fuel to generate electricity when renewable energy sources can’t meet demand. The light, high-quality oil produced in Taranaki is sold into international markets and typically refined into petroleum products, the government said.
Earlier this year, New Zealand’s government awarded the first offshore oil and gas exploration license after last year lifting a ban on drilling, put in place by the previous government that wanted to focus on a transition from hydrocarbons to electricity from low-carbon sources.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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