Experts divided over West Coast oil claim

Expert opinions differ over claims that parts of the central West Coast lie over a vast natural gas and oil reservoir.

Ed Durkee, an American veteran of 53 years in the field of oil and gas exploration, claims the area from Marsden to Kumara could provide millions of barrels of oil, and also houses vast reserves of natural gas.

Durkee fronts a company which has drilling rights over the area, which was first tested in 1942.

He said test bores in 2004 were so positive the company had doubled the size of its permit area, extending it as far south as the Arahura River.

Subsequent laboratory results suggest a vast, untapped gas reserve and the results were so spectacular the company felt comfortable in extolling the merits of the resource.

Durkee said his company intended splitting the permit area into three regions and drilling new wells in each.

He believed there was potential for millions of barrels of oil if his assumptions were proved right.

"This area is possibly the source of the oil in seeps at Kotuku, north of Lake Brunner."

However, West Coast geologist Dr Murry Cave expressed doubt about the claimed discovery.

Cave said the results of the 1942 tests were freely available for review and, while initially indicating the potential for 2.5 million cubic feet of gas production, they showed under analysis that the gas was essentially pure methane.

As a result, the well had been plugged and abandoned. In the intervening 63 years, the results had been reviewed by several permit holders, including Petrocorp, which held the area during the 1980s.

Cave said he took part in the Petrocorp tests which determined the gas flows were minor and sub-commercial.

"Published geological reports by the New Zealand Geological Survey and its successor the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences also described the find as minor."

- NZPA