Kiwi to expand CSG acreage
THE private L&M Group has applied for its first onshore/offshore coal seam gas and conventional petroleum exploration permit – a large block in the geological Canterbury Basin of New Zealand.
Subsidiary L&M Exploration Company has applied to the government’s Crown Minerals Group for a 7385 square kilometre licence over essentially the same acreage as that relinquished late last year by Green Gate and Australian junior Gas2Grid.
“We are basically following in their footsteps,” L&M Group managing director Greg Hogan told PetroleumNews.net from Christchurch this morning.
“We think the area is prospective and, if granted a permit, will carry out the usual early stages of exploration work.”
The acreage L&M Exploration has applied for stretches from Christchurch north to about the town of Cheviot and inland but also offshore several kilometres.
Green Gate and Gas2Grid drilled the non-commercial onshore Kate-1 wildcat well on the outskirts of Christchurch in May 2008.
The well failed to encounter commercial hydrocarbons in the well’s primary target sandstone reservoirs in the Late Cretaceous Broken River Formation coal measures that had an estimated potential of about 25 million barrels of oil in place.
The L&M Exploration bid is also the first Priority In Time (PIT) application for any CanterburyBasin acreage since former Associate Energy Minister Harry Duynhoven opened up parts of Canterbury and offshore Taranaki in late 2008.
PIT applications allow explorers to bid at any time for unallocated acreage or acreage that becomes available through a permit being revoked, surrendered or otherwise terminated, rather than having to wait for the government to make a blocks offer.
Several explorers – such as Australian Worldwide Exploration, New Zealand Oil & Gas, and Todd Energy –have rushed to grab the best blocks near proven producing Taranaki fields but, until now, no explorer had made any applications for Canterbury.
As well, sister subsidiary L&M CSG – which is discussing a possible CSG assets sale to, or merger with, listed explorer L&M Petroleum – won a 70sq.km CSG permit over part of the geological WanganuiBasin surrounding the central NorthIsland town of Taumarunui earlier this month.
If granted this latest licence, L&M Group will then have, through its various subsidiaries, seven CSG permits scattered across the North Island and South Island – two in Southland (Ohai and Winton), two in Otago (Kaitangata and Hawkdun), and one each in south Waikato, Wanganui (Taumarunui) and the Canterbury lease.
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
PNN
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