The Canterbury Basin permit contains the Barque gas and light oil/condensate prospect, in a general area which has attracted much interest from oil explorers during the past three decades, with a total of four offshore test holes drilled, including one in late 2006 by AWE and earlier consortium members using the rig Ocean Patriot.
In October last year, dual-listed New Zealand Oil and Gas (NZOG) acquired a 40% share of the Canterbury Basin permit to join operator AWE (25%), Beach Petroleum (20%) and Anzon New Zealand (15%).
NZOG public affairs manager Chris Roberts said yesterday the results from seismic data gathered by a hydrographic survey ship during summer were just "starting to come through".
AWE was due to make a decision to "drill or drop the permit" by August under the provisions of the first five-year permit.
"The new permit means less time pressure and more time to work on the data," Mr Roberts said.
Permit agency Crown Minerals confirmed AWE now had seven years from the time the first permit was issued in August 2003 in which to make a "drill-or-drop" decision.
Before the February seismic work, NZOG estimated the Barque prospect had potentially recoverable resources of 600 billion cubic feet of gas and 58 million barrels of light oil/condensate, but cautioned at the time there was no certainty of going ahead with an exploration well.
Mr Roberts said while he was unable to release data results, NZOG "did not anticipate" the need for further seismic work at this stage and cautioned that a decision on test drilling would also be affected by the availability of rigs, of which there has been a worldwide shortage recently.
AWE, in a consortium with Tap Oil at the time, was in the same waters in late 2006 with Ocean Patriot, but it capped the 3000m test well 21km off the North Otago coast and abandoned it as commercially unviable.
AWE representatives declined to comment on the permit extension yesterday, but sources close to the company said up to five offshore test-drill holes planned in Taranaki were AWE's main priority. The Canterbury Basin exploration would be considered after all data analysis was completed.
