NZOG won't rule out more cash for Pike River

The slurry pipeline at the Pike River Coal mine. Photo / Greg Bowker

New Zealand Oil & Gas has not ruled out further funding of Pike River Coal on top of a short-term $25 million loan which must be repaid in December.

NZOG's chairman, Tony Radford, said Pike was still working out the way in which it would repay the loan.

The coal company is spending the money on getting its West Coast mine towards full production after a series of delays and additional fundraising.

Asked during NZOG's annual meeting in Auckland yesterday whether it would put in more for the offshoot company, Radford said he could not rule it out.

"I don't think it would be appropriate for me to come out with a blanket statement to say Pike won't get any more investment."

NZOG has spent $85 million building up a 29 per cent stake in Pike but Radford said his company did not intend to be a long-term holder.

"We're not looking at some sort of fire sale - far from it. We want to get the mine up and running fully. At some stage we would look to exit but not in a hurry," he said.

Chief executive David Salisbury said the company was providing more support to Pike River than was anticipated a year ago.

"However, NZOG has commissioned its own technical and management reviews and believes that, despite the delays in the mine reaching full production, the fundamental value of the project remains intact."

NZOG directors came under fire from one shareholder for not investing in more of its peers and for its management structure and costs.

The company has taken a stake in Pan Pacific Petroleum but Radford said it prioritised exploration and production rather than investing. Salisbury said the company had 20 full-time employees and a salary and bonus bill of $3 million, which had increased by about a third in the past three years.

The company had done some soul searching after an unsuccessful drilling programme at a cost of more than $30 million, Salisbury said.

The company was now evaluating potential in the southern offshore Taranaki Basin.

That included the Kaupokonui prospect, a near-shore, large high-risk structure where estimates of mean prospective resources were more than 200 million barrels of oil.

NZOG owns 90 per cent of the permit and new Australian company Peak Oil & Gas recently signed up as a partner. Peak would meet 20 per cent of the costs of an exploration well, with conditions, in return for a 10 per cent permit stake.

NZOG shares closed up 2c at $1.31 yesterday.