New Zealand

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Jan. 20 – New Zealand offered six blocks covering 105,230 sq km in the Reinga basin northwest of the North Island.

Newly acquired seismic reflection data and other information indicate that a large part of the basin is prospective for oil and gas and parts have high potential. The blocks are just north of the Northland blocks already on offer.

The basin has as much as 7 km of Mesozoic and Cenozoic sedimentary rocks and appears to have all elements of an active petroleum system in 1,750-2,000 m of water, Crown Minerals said. Large areas lie in the oil generation window in a sequence similar to that of the Taranaki basin.

The major risk relates largely to the low level of geologic knowledge of the basin. However, the Turi and the Waipawa formations are rich, and modeling suggests that a 100-m interval of source rock expelled as much as 7.5 million bbl/sq km of oil and more than 60 bcf/sq km of gas.