L&M Energy and Australian-based Mosaic Oil NZ have been granted a five-year petroleum exploration permit for the 6sq km onshore Taranaki Kahili block.L&M, which has a 25 percent stake in the permit, said the Kahili field was discovered in 2002 and
L&M Energy and Australian-based Mosaic Oil NZ have been granted a five-year petroleum exploration permit for the 6sq km onshore Taranaki Kahili block.
L&M, which has a 25 percent stake in the permit, said the Kahili field was discovered in 2002 and the previous permit holder achieved commercial gas and condensate flows.
An on-site processing facility and pipeline connecting to the gas network had been built by Natural Gas Corporation, now Vector.
The Kahili-1B well had produced 0.18 billion cubic feet of gas and 5.53 thousand barrels of condensate before watering out unexpectedly in 2004.
Both the production facility and the pipeline remained under a care and maintenance programme by Vector pending further work within the permit, L&M said.
With those facilities available any future discoveries could be rapidly commercialised.
The joint venture would start the acquisition of 30km of new seismic and reprocess a minimum of 160km of seismic in order to identify a suitable drilling target.
