The deepest well ever drilled in this country has brought further good news to the partners in the Maari oil development off the Taranaki coast.
The 8km appraisal well was drilled in a 48-day programme from the Maari wellhead platform southwest into the Manaia field.
"It's the equivalent of drilling down from Wellington Airport and aiming for an area the size of a set of goal posts some 2km below the Westpac Stadium," OMV New Zealand managing director Wayne Kirk said today.
OMV NZ is the major shareholder in the development and its operator.
Today it said development of the Manaia field would move to commercial oil production after the success of the appraisal well.
"The well results give us cause for optimism so we are pressing ahead with preparations to begin production as soon as possible," Mr Kirk said.
"We knew there was a good chance of success as oil was first discovered there in 1970. At the time it was considered uneconomic because of poor reservoir quality and low oil production rates from a typical vertical well.
"However, the type of well drilled now, our evaluation of the well data combined with the availability of the Maari production facilities now makes the Manaia discovery commercially viable."
The Manaia well would be tied into the Maari facilities with production due to begin over the next months, Mr Kirk said.
It is the second piece of good news from the Maari partners in a week.
A production well has been drilled into the M2A formation at Maari, just above the oil-producing Moki formation, with production from M2A expected to begin by the end of the year.
The latest developments were "icing on the Maari cake", Mr Kirk said.
OMV NZ said it would not comment on reserves or production flow rates until a full evaluation of both discoveries was completed.
Initial results pointed to the reserves and flow rates being along the lines of previous expectations.
OMV NZ has a 69 percent share in the development, Australia'sHorizon Oil has 10 percent, Todd Energy 16 percent, and Cue Taranaki 5 percent.
