“The biggest oil story of 2010″ is how the large Hoki-1 oil prospect 150km off the north-west of New Plymouth is being described in Australia. NZ Energy & Environment Business Week last week outlined the summer drilling campaign Sydney-based Australian Worldwide Exploration is planning in its permits off Taranaki, including the Hoki-1 prospect. Subsequently, Wellington-based NZ Oil and Gas said it was joining the Hoki programme by acquiring a 10% stake, committing $10m to the purchase and its share of the cost of drilling the exploration well.

Hoki is the largest untested prospect in the western margin of the Taranaki Basin. The Hoki-1 well will test both the primary Island Sandstone reservoir and a secondary target in the North Cape formation. NZOG’s David Salisbury says while exploration is always risky, NZOG’s internal assessment is Hoki has the potential to be a large oil-bearing reservoir. An additional attraction is the prospect is “drill mature” and drilling arrangements employing the semi submersible rig Kan Tan 1V are already in place. The participating interests in Hoki are AWE NZ Pty (operator) 50%, OMV NZ Ltd 21.25%, Todd Petroleum Mining Ltd 18.75%
Salisbury’s assessment of Hoki is relatively cautious, compared with the billing it is being given in some Australian circles. “Saudi of the Deep South” is one headline over a report which cites a quote from GNS Science’s David Darby who calls the area “Saudi-sized structures, they are that big.” The report says AWE has the rights to drill for more than 55mmbbls, using a revolutionary new semi-submersible rig to extract oil from waters up to 25,000 feet deep.

The Aust report says at the moment the Taranaki basin is still massively under-explored by world standards. Only a total of 400 wells have been drilled so far, compared with the tens of thousands drilled in the similar-sized British portion of the North Sea. Darby is quoted as saying “Greater Taranaki has the characteristics of world-class petroleum systems around the globe. The deepwater frontiers of NZ beckon.”

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