Major oil strike ahead if PR campaign succeeds

Hugh de Lacy: Presidential adviser and peak oil guru says New Zealand is attractive to global explorers

A major oil strike is on the cards if the government campaign to attract explorers to New Zealand’s mostly off-shore fields succeeds, according to peak oil guru and adviser to US President George W Bush, Matt Simmons.

And the campaign may well attract major oil companies, as well as the juniors that typically tackle the high-risk business of exploring for oil, Mr Simmons told the National Business Review.

In Auckland this week as the headline speaker at the government-sponsored 2006 Petroleum Conference, Mr Simmons said New Zealand was attractive to global oil explorers for more than just the geological data the Crown Minerals, a division of the Ministry of Economic Development is making available free to oil companies as part of its drive to have New Zealand recognised as the next emerging petroleum frontier.

“The nice thing about New Zealand opportunities is that most of the other places the oil and gas industries have been invited to work have terrible political structures, are dangerous places to work, unpleasant places to be and then have bad-quality oil.

National Business Review