Alan,
I never really thought of it as you have just phased it. But that is essentially it. The NZ Govt. would much rather be able to spend their limited overseas funds on items other than oil imports. Therefore, to pay more than the going world market rate internally in NZ using NZ dollars is an ideal solution. They do this by giving the oil companies very good terms domestically, which so far has absorbed all NZ oil and gas production.
I don't see NZ hardly ever exporting much oil overseas. Most of their present production on the oil side is condensate.
The major oil companies in NZ at the present time are BP, Shell, Europa (a local NZ Co.), CalTex and one or 2 others that retail gasoline (both Islands), CNG (in the North Island) and propane (in the South Island).
Over the 40 years of aggressive oil gas exploraton in NZ, what Lickman described as the oil and gas fields is about it. Not much to show for in 40 years. I had invested in a local NZ exploration company in the late '60's (Repulic Oil as I remember) which had an adjacent block next to the Shell, BP, Todd Mauri field block in the Taranaki Basin. Their well (Republic) was a dry hole. This is typical NZ experience.
There is another Company who had just drilled a couple of wells in Harkes Bay (southern east coast, North Is.) with dry hole results. I don't have the precise data, but I would imagine that if 5% to 10% of all the wells drilled in NZ hit any kind of a hydrocarbon show, that would be on the high side.
Bruce |
