NZ may still have 10 billion barrels of oil – GNS

Up to 10 billion barrels of oil could be recovered from future significant discoveries around New Zealand, an expert in oil exploration says.

“New Zealand is surrounded by sedimentary basins. . . and the probability of significant oil. . . 10 billion barrels,” said David Darby, a “new business” manager for GNS Science.
“The deepwater frontiers of New Zealand beckon,” he told a media briefing at GNS Science’s Wellington head office. “The best potential for New Zealand exploration is in our deepwater basins.

“Discoveries in our remote areas – if they are big – will have enormous implications for New Zealand.

Dr Darby said yesterday the rock layers “churned up” near the tectonic plate boundaries under New Zealand meant the nation’s best chance of hydrocarbon finds was in the geologically “quieter” areas that made up sedimentary basins to the north-west and south-east of the continental shelf.

The nation’s 4 million sqkm exclusive economic zone (EEZ) was the world’s fourth-biggest and about a third of it was covered by the type of sedimentary basins sought by oil explorers.

New Zealand’s self-sufficiency in oil had slumped from a high of 50 per cent in 1990 to its present level of 13 per cent.

“It is declining much faster than previously predicted, due to our increasing consumption of oil,” said Dr Darby. “This means that we import a huge amount of oil into NZ with an enormous impact on our balance-of-payments.

Dr Darby said existing data suggested New Zealand’s peak oil production was in 1997 and its peak gas flows in 2000.

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