Oil giant Anadarko Petroleum's offshore drilling programme near Dunedin next summer, estimated to cost more than $US100 million ($NZ124 million) will "almost certainly" be postponed because of a global shortage of oil rigs.
Going back to mid-2010, southern offshore oil and gas exploration projects have been plagued by a shortage of oil rigs and drilling ships, further undermined by the high cost of getting the equipment to New Zealand for relatively short drilling programmes, whether off Taranaki or Canterbury or in the Great South Basin south of Otago.
In a separate exploration, Shell this week confirmed it could be up to two years before a decision is made on whether to test-drill in the Great South Basin, while Anadarko has almost admitted defeat in finding a rig to drill in November-December this year.
New Zealand spokesman for Houston-based Anadarko, Alan Seay, when contacted yesterday, said it had planned a multi-hole Canterbury programme.
It would cost $US100 million to get a rig to New Zealand, then $US1 million per day running costs over a period of weeks.
" If nothing comes to light [rig availability] by the end of the month we will have to consider rescheduling the programme," Mr Seay said.
There was a less than 50:50 chance of finding a drill ship, or preferably a semi-submersible dynamically positioned oil rig, and any summer programme was now "almost certainly" postponed, he said.
Anadarko is the operational partner in a 50:50 joint venture with Australian-listed Origin Energy to drill the Canterbury Basin, and has pledged to spend at least $US30 million to drill near the historical Caravel and Carrack prospects, 65km from Dunedin, at depths of 1100m-1500m.
Test drilling off Oamaru was undertaken by the Ocean Patriot in November 2006. The Great South Basin has not been drilled since Hunt Petroleum sank eight test wells in the 1970s and '80s.
Mr Seay said high oil prices were prompting more exploration activity around the world, as was increased drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, after US president Barrack Obama lifted a drilling moratorium, in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon environmental disaster two years ago.
Anadarko was a 25% non-operational shareholder with BP in the Deepwater Horizon project.
The Government is putting about 25 offshore basins out to tender later in the year. Cuccessful applicants will be announced before the end of the year.
While little progress appears to have been made towards test drilling, representatives from several large oil companies are maintaining regular contact with southern local bodies, businesses and organisations.
Asked if Anadarko was considering tendering for other basins, or extending its holdings in the Canterbury Basin tenement, Mr Seay declined to comment directly because of "commercial sensitivity", but said the company was "watching with interest", the tender process.
"We're determined to conduct a drilling programme at some point," he said.
Both Anadarko and Shell have run separate ship-borne seismic survey programmes in their respective basins, totalling more than $60 million spent during the past five years, but neither has plans for more surveying.
