"Roll out the red carpet!" cried some community leaders.
"One thousand jobs" was bandied around, and although no-one seemed too sure where that figure came from, it sounded good, so it grew a bit of a life of its own.
Advertisements were taken out in the local newspaper to ensure Anadarko's executives knew they were welcome, and a local MP got pretty mad with the town's council for not expressing sufficient joy at the company's impending arrival.
And while some locals expressed concerns on several different fronts, these were generally lost among the clattering of champagne glasses from sectors that figured they had a shot at benefiting from Big Oil setting up shop in Dunedin.
Now, what happened from here gets a bit cloudy. There are varying accounts of how the story played out.
According to one, the city thought it best not to ask too many questions, and without further ado, out rolled the red carpet.
Initially, things seemed pretty good.
Admittedly there weren't quite as many jobs as promised, but some lucky locals did scoop up well-paying jobs alongside the imported workers.
And while the lion's share of the money was going overseas, a reasonable bit flowed into Dunedin's economy.
Not everyone felt they were benefiting. Some within the tourism industry even complained about a decline in business.
For most Dunedinites, though, life continued on much as it had before.
But a few years down the track, things took a bit of a turn.
The problem was, the world got serious about addressing climate change.
The bridge of denial and delay had finally given way as the melting ice, escalating weather extremes, and large-scale crop failures became too obvious to continue ignoring.
It became clear that the future of fossil fuels would have to be a short one indeed.
And it became clear that the oil and gas reserves being eyed up off the Otago coast would mostly have to stay in the ground.
Profits and share prices tumbled as the "carbon bubble" burst and investors started jumping ship to clean energy companies.
Job losses began to kick in at Dunedin's oil operations, and other businesses in retail and hospitality suffered as the effects rippled through the local economy.
Under pressure, companies started cutting corners on safety procedures.
There were increasing instances of small accidents and spills, and Dunedin's reputation as the wildlife capital of New Zealand took a bit of a hammering.
All of a sudden, Anadarko's red carpet was looking decidedly ragged.
Not all accounts of the Dunedin story end like this, though. There's another version I'd like to share.
According to this one, the people of Dunedin decided to keep the carpet rolled up while they had a good hard think about things.
They recognised that while the proposal being sold to them sounded pretty good, it carried some big risks.
They thought hard about their responsibility to ensure a better future for their children and grandchildren.
They took note of a recent carbon tracker initiative report explaining that the world could only burn about a fifth of the fossil fuel reserves already discovered, for a reasonable chance of keeping global average temperature rise below the "safe limit" of 2degC.
They rejected the notion commonly spread by those wanting to delay action on climate change that since New Zealand only caused 0.2% of global greenhouse gas emissions, the actions it took wouldn't matter.
They realised New Zealand could be much more than 0.2% of the solution.
They recognised arguments such as "we're just supplying support services", or "the oil won't touch our shores", or "the industry's presence is a decision for the Government" didn't really cut it.
They agreed that lines had to start being drawn.
They also agreed that when the future ultimately must be low carbon, the most prosperous places would be those focusing their efforts on the opportunities of a low carbon economy.
They noticed the rapid growth in global renewable energy investment, which had doubled in just the last four years.
They realised that more and more bright young people were drawn to job opportunities that helped solve the world's problems, rather than contributing to them.
They drew inspiration from a recent Berl report on neighbouring Southland, which showed many options for economic development without exploiting the billions of tonnes of lignite coal buried under their farmland. They commissioned a similar study for Dunedin.
In the end, they decided that a better future for the city lay in industries that offered secure, long-term prospects that wouldn't damage the planet or the city's reputation.
They decided to tell Anadarko a polite but firm "Thanks, but no thanks".
The best thing about this story is this: it's yet to be written. We have the opportunity as a community to hold this most important discussion about our future, and the role we all have in creating it.
Let's not waste it - and let's not rush it.
• Louis Chambers, a student at the University of Otago, is Generation Zero's national co-ordinator. He recently returned from an internship in Washington, DC, working on economic and legal aspects of climate change. Generation Zero is a youth organisation which focuses on climate change.
