On Tuesday, the Otago Daily Times reported the development of the Barque field, offshore from Oamaru, has the potential to more than double New Zealand’s current oil and gas production.
Mr Power, who has an extensive background in oil and gas environmental management dating back nearly four decades, has worked for Maritime New Zealand, and has a background in environmental law, yesterday said the possibility of New Zealand Oil & Gas developing a joint venture in the area was in ‘‘very early days’’ but could have an immediate economic upside locally.
‘‘The exploration phase is quite different to the production phase,’’ Mr Power said.
‘‘If the lights light up green across the board in relation to those exploration findings, then you’re into construction and production.
‘‘In the greater scheme of things, that’s really the important bit. Because that’s where jobs are — and a generation of jobs and employment and opportunity would be associated with that [production] phase.’’
He was ‘‘very interested’’ in potential discussions with the company ‘‘about how, if they were to proceed with exploration and eventual development, how we can assist with maximising opportunities for our community’’.
‘‘There’s always going to be opportunities for Oamaru and Waitaki even in the immediate future once exploration commences — it may be that the company opts to have helicopter operations out of Oamaru or maybe that they have tender vessel operations out of Oamaru, but those are the discussions that we need to sit down and have with the company, so it’s very early days.’’
The economic impact report, by Martin Jenkins, for New Zealand Oil & Gas and released yesterday stays with a 20% chance of discovery, either of two scenarios, piping gas to shore or processing offshore — which would respectively require a 12-year and seven-year construction phase — could add thousands of jobs to the area and add billions of dollars to New Zealand’s economy.
‘‘Bringing gas to shore has the potential to significantly transform the South Canterbury/Otago economy, as happened in Taranaki following the Maui field discovery,’’ the consultants’ report reads.
Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher said the possibility of an oil and gas operation offshore had been unexpected after Anadarko, the company ‘‘we had been dealing with in the past ... had pulled up sticks and gone away’’.
He said despite some of the public reaction he had seen to this week’s news about an oil and gas operation, gas or low-pressure oil and high-pressure oil represented different levels of risk, ‘‘just as there are levels of risk importing tankerloads of oil from overseas’’.
