New Zealand deep sea oil drilling map
![Picture](/uploads/5/4/0/9/54097819/4201855.jpg?1434359883)
The oil exploration areas identified by the Government as part of its 2014 block offer.
The Government has doubled the amount of land and sea available for oil and gas exploration, so that they can drill more oil. The total is now 405,000 square kilometres, or 1.5 times New Zealand's entire surface area.
Mr Bridges said the area is big for a reason:
"Companies do want maximum areas where they think there is good prospectivity to explore. So while they start relatively large, they move into very small areas."
"There is a lot more information that's available for explorers to use, to help inform their decision-making. What they've put together is a better pack of information and putting it in one place for the explorer to access."
Texas oil giant Anadarko's recent failure to find oil is common, and drilling in deep-sea basins like those off Taranaki and Otago can have as little as a one to five percent success rate.
Protesters:
A small number of demonstrators protested outside the conference as the minister stressed the economic importance of oil and gas. Organiser Fi Gibson said they were angry at the new offer.
"This comes despite the IPCC report which shows climate change is very real and come with real costs for New Zealand. This is moving in the opposite direction to today's block offer."
The Government has doubled the amount of land and sea available for oil and gas exploration, so that they can drill more oil. The total is now 405,000 square kilometres, or 1.5 times New Zealand's entire surface area.
Mr Bridges said the area is big for a reason:
"Companies do want maximum areas where they think there is good prospectivity to explore. So while they start relatively large, they move into very small areas."
"There is a lot more information that's available for explorers to use, to help inform their decision-making. What they've put together is a better pack of information and putting it in one place for the explorer to access."
Texas oil giant Anadarko's recent failure to find oil is common, and drilling in deep-sea basins like those off Taranaki and Otago can have as little as a one to five percent success rate.
Protesters:
A small number of demonstrators protested outside the conference as the minister stressed the economic importance of oil and gas. Organiser Fi Gibson said they were angry at the new offer.
"This comes despite the IPCC report which shows climate change is very real and come with real costs for New Zealand. This is moving in the opposite direction to today's block offer."