From: Hawks Bay Today
Canadian-owned Tag Oil has been quick to allay fears that Hawke’s Bay is about to be inundated with oil rigs following the announcement independent Texan oil giant, Apache Corporation, is funding a $100 million ground mapping programme.
Tag Oil’s New Zealand chief operating officer Drew Cadenhead said seismic testing was unobtrusive. Cables were laid on the ground and a sound transmitted into the earth, and what bounced back was measured by geophones. “It’s just some guys in utes and quads and a bunch of cables.”
The first and most important step before the company became active in Hawke’s Bay was consultation, he said. “We are not charging in under cover of darkness – engagement with people is the first step.”
Alayna Watene, chief executive of Te Taiwhenua o Heretaunga, said she expected most Ngati Kahungunu to greet Tag Oil with an open ear. “As an individual, I think most will want to hear what are the risks and what are the opportunities,” she said.
“You would expect those conversations would take place, but there are some groups who are already politicised on the issue and who may want to tell others what to think.” Some had taken part in offshore protests last summer, when Brazilian oil giant Petrobras did seismic testing off East Cape, she said.
Apache will pay for the collection of two and three-dimensional seismic data in exchange for a stake in Tag Oil’s permits.
Tag Oil holds permits for more than 688,000ha in the East Coast, from East Cape to southern Hawke’s Bay.
The Hawke’s Bay permit runs from Napier to south of Dannevirke, where there is naturally-occurring surface petroleum.
Apache will get a 50 per cent interest in the permits after the three exploratory phases are finished, and if it commits to extraction, all costs would be shared.
Mr Cadenhead said concerns that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) of oil shale deposits would pollute the aquifer were unfounded and premature – Tag Oil wanted to map the earth, and conventional oil fields were the target. “When you have a new area you always go for the easy ones first,” he said.
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