NZOG moves quickly to start drilling two wells off Taranaki

By CHRIS DANIELS

New Zealand Oil & Gas, buoyed by the success of its recent Amokura oil discovery, says it is to quickly drill two new wells off Taranaki.

NZOG told investors that it would drill the new wells within 5km of the Amokura well, which last month was found to have the potential to hold 15 million to 35 million barrels of recoverable oil. At current prices, 25 million barrels would mean gross revenue of over $1 billion.

Executive chairman Tony Radford said that the company had a "near-term oil field development in our sights".

The new offshore wells, which will be called Pateke-1 and Kiwi-1, will be drilled in mid-July.

US company Transworld owns 45 per cent of the Amokura well and is the operator, and Australian company AWE owns 20 per cent. Pan Pacific owns 10 per cent and Japan's Mitsui 12.5 per cent.

NZOG's drilling at Pukeko has not been a success, finding only small amounts of oil.