Three days of Environment Protection Authority hearings ended yesterday regarding OMV's plans to drill an oil and gas exploration well costing about $80million in the Great South Basin this summer.
The hearing is limited to the effects of a small potential discharge of harmful substances from the drill rig's deck drains, so wider environmental effects of gas and oil drilling cannot be considered.
Opposing submitters expressed frustration at the scope of the hearing, and many who deviated into the wider impacts of fossil fuel combustion on climate change were cut short by the committee chairman.
OMV legal counsel James Winchester said yesterday the company understood and accepted the frustration of submitters regarding the restraints of the hearing.
Those restraints were set out in the Exclusive Economic Zone and Continental Shelf Act and the consenting process.
"Those are the cards we were dealt."
If people had concerns about the process, it was an issue for Parliament, he said.
"It's up to them to change the law."
Nothing had been submitted throughout the course of the hearing to make the company change its view on the consent, he said.
Two opposing submitters were heard yesterday, including Sustainable Dunedin chairwoman Fiona Clements, who said Ngai Tahu whakapapa was not properly taken into account.
"We are certain that there should be an impact assessment and a cultural assessment."
Submitter Liz Palmer said there were "many unknowns" in the application.
The authority should be going to "great lengths" to stop OMV's plans, she said.
