Shell, Partners to Drill Offshore New Zealand, Hope to Find Gas

Shell, OMV and Mitsui have decided to drill an exploration well in the PEP 50119 block in Great South Basin off the coast of New Zealand.

“The timing of the drilling program will be determined following detailed planning and will most likely target the early 2016 summer period,” Shell said in a statement Tuesday.  

Shell is the majority owner and operator of New Zealand’s major natural gas fields in Taranaki (Māui, Kapuni and Pohokura), meeting around 70% of this country’s natural gas requirements. 

“We're very confident that any find will be natural gas rather than oil. We believe there's less than a 1 percent chance that there's going to be oil,"Shell New Zealand Chairman Rob Jager told news agency Reuters.

Jager added that this would most likely going to be a gas export development given the limited size of New Zealand's domestic gas market, said Reuters.  

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