The oil industry has told Greenpeace what it's doing off the eastern Wairarapa coast is legal, and to stay safe out on the seas.
Seismic testing ship the Amazon Warrior is surveying on behalf of Statoil and Chevron.
It has been intercepted by Greenpeace activists group in an inflatable vessel, who spoke to the Amazon Warrior crew via radio, telling them to leave.
"We respect Greenpeace's right to protest," Cameron Madgwick from the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association told Newshub.
"We also ask them of course to respect the rights of our sector to conduct its lawful activities."
Mr Madgwick says the oil industry is very important to the New Zealand economy.
"Our sector employs about 11,000 people directly and indirectly. We think they make a huge contribution to New Zealand - that's in addition of course to the couple of billion dollars we contribute to GDP."
The Amazon Warrior is a large vessel - it's the world's biggest seismic testing ship at125m long and weighing more than 6800 tonnes. It dwarfs the tiny boats Greenpeace activists took out earlier this week.
"It's been refusing to come into port - it's been very hard to protest against, so we decided to go out to it," Greenpeace spokeswoman Kate Simcock said.
"We would ask that Greenpeace to be mindful of the environment they're in and ensure they're safe, and that they don't endanger the crews of the vessels that are out there as well," said Mr Madgwick.
Newshub.
