The Government has boosted investment in the oil and gas sector around New Zealand, including the southern Great South Basin, awarding almost $10 million awarded to GNS Science, spread over a new four-year programme.
Last week, Energy and Resources Minister Simon Bridges signalled further onshore Southland and offshore, high-risk, frontier Great South Basin areas were in his sights as potential block-offer tender areas after 2016.
This was followed by Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce announcing GNS had won funding of $2.4 million a year for four years in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment's 2015 science investment round.
Additionally, co-funding for GNS of $400,000, at $100,000 a year, will be provided by international oil exploration companies Anadarko, ExxonMobil, OMV, and Shell, three of which have current permits in New Zealand.
GNS' programme leader, Richard Sykes, said the Government would use findings from the research to make decisions on new acreage for permits, to attract new exploration investment in New Zealand.
''Compelling exploration blocks backed by high-quality scientific data will promote more competitive bidding, higher-quality work programmes, and increase the chances of new discoveries,'' Mr Sykes said.
The Government has invested millions of dollars in shipborne seismic data collection in recent years in an attempt to attract exploration companies to New Zealand with the new data.
A swath of 141,000sq km of the Great South Basin and Canterbury Basin are included in the 2015 block offer, the outcome of which is expected to be announced in coming months.
While GNS will lead the new research, it will be supported by a consortium of four New Zealand universities, including the University of Otago, four overseas universities and the Institute of Environmental Science and Research.
Mr Sykes said seven New Zealand PhD students would work on particular aspects of the research over the next four years.
''The scope of the work is broad and will include proven basins such as Taranaki as well as `frontier' [largely unexplored] areas where there is no petroleum production at present,'' he said.
Within the programme, two Otago PhD students are expected to undertake shallow, offshore seismic studies looking for evidence of seafloor gas seepage, while an associate professor will be studying trace metals in rocks, he said.
Mr Sykes said seismic data gleaned by oil and gas explorers in recent years might be included in the studies, including around the Great South and Canterbury basins.
He said in most cases, the programme would provide the PhD students with an annual stipend, plus fieldwork and laboratory expenses.
A GNS spokesman said yesterday the Great South Basin was ''in the mix'' for the new programme.
''There is some modest onshore field work planned in Otago-Southland, investigating coastal outcrops, offshore rock formations,'' he said.
The new programme would also include work on existing shipborne seismic data and historical data gleaned from test wells previously drilled around the Great South Basin.
Eight test wells have been drilled in the Great South Basin and off Oamaru in the adjacent northern Canterbury Basin since the 1970s.
The next test well, off Oamaru, could be drilled by New Zealand Oil and Gas in 2017.
The company is looking for a joint-venture partner for the up to $180 million programme, while Shell is yet to announce any Great South drilling intentions.
Mr Sykes said an important component of the research programme would be engagement with a broad range of end-users and stakeholders, including community groups and iwi.
He said previous ''modest-sized'' finds, such as the Tui field in 2003, had ''dramatically increased'' New Zealand's gross domestic product, while major discoveries, such as Maui in 1969, could be ''economy-changing''.
He said work by GNS in recent years had been publicly credited by the exploration industry with helping to lift and focus exploration activity in the Taranaki Basin.
The programme would develop new ''workstation-ready'' data products for the exploration industry and help to reduce ''uncertainties'' involved in petroleum exploration, he said.
Oil and gas exploration
GNS Science's three main aims. -
• Improve understanding of the rock formations that generate petroleum.
• The relationship between petroleum fluids and their ''source rocks''.
• How petroleum moves and is trapped in sub-surface structures.
• Over 4 years: Government $9.6million, industry $400,000.
Source: GNS Science
