US oil giant Anadarko has asked the Government to extend its exploration permit off the Otago coast.
The company has already spent as much as $100 million drilling a test well in the Canterbury basin in the search for commercial quantities of natural gas.
So far, the endeavor has been a failure and the company announced it was pulling out of New Zealand in March.
But spokesperson Alan Seay says Anadarko would now like more time to analyse data obtained from the Otago test well.
"We didn't make a commercial discovery but you get a lot of information from a well, you take samples and so forth," he says. "Basically this allows us time to do all of that kind of analysis and research and come to a conclusion on what the next steps might be."
Mr Seay admits the application could eventually lead to further drilling depending on lab and survey results, but says the request for more time is "fairly routine".
"It's a huge area, a massive area, and there are many, many geographical formations that we've seen that have the potential to hold considerable reserves.
"What we typically might do, depending on the information from the laboratory workers, is conduct another seismic survey in the area and try to identify other prospects in that block that might be worth drilling."
The application was lodged with New Zealand Petroleum and Mineral this month, but the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment department is yet to come to a decision on the matter.
3 News
source: newshub archive
