New Zealand Celsias

For those of us who didn't realise just how much of the East Coast oil is controlled by TAG Oil here's a bit from their website . 

East Coast Basin, New Zealand

Conventional and Unconventional 

Exploration Approach
TAG Oil controls 100% interest in more than 1.7-million acres, representing the most significant position in the onshore area of the East Coast Basin. Geotechnical work has identified a number of multi-target, conventional and unconventional prospects at depths between 250 and 2000 meters.

There are very few wells drilled in the East Coast Basin (one well per 800,000 acres), but the majority of these had significant oil and gas shows, including two of the offshore wells. One onshore gas discovery, with flow rates of up to 12 million cubic feet gas per day, is now under appraisal by Energy Corporation of America in the neighboring acreage.

 At least 50 conventional prospects and leads have been identified across the acreage with a number of large prospects like the Boar Hill, Pauariki, KawaKawa, and the Arakihi Anticline prospects directly overlying primary unconventional prospects. This sets up multi-target exploration with many of our upcoming wells in the East Coast Basin. Sproule International Ltd. estimates the undiscovered conventional resource potential in TAG Oil's permits to be in excess of 1.7 billion barrels.

Widespread Unconventional Frontier
Unconventional prospects are widespread across the acreage and exist in the late Cretaceous to Paleocene-aged Waipawa and Whangai source rock formations. Recent field and subsurface core studies have confirmed these world-class source rocks are not only rich in Total Organic Carbon (TOC %), they are also heavily fractured in many locations, which is one key factor in successful tight oil production. Many of the active oil and gas seeps situated within TAG’s East Coast Permits have been geochemically tied to these rich underlying source rocks, confirming the validity of these unconventional targets as viable hydrocarbon prospects.

So....1.7 billion barrels...they have the exploration rights and they are looking at "unconventional means" as well . Why, does this fill me with dread ?

They are positively salivating at the thought, and as the Sunday papers picked up New Zealand is the "likely Texas of the South " . 

What a horrible thought . While they drool about the profits, what risks are we facing ?

Is it just because we have a tendency to go for the short term gain at the expense of the things that are central to who we are as New Zealanders ? 

Is it because we know the politics of oil has been corrupt ...everywhere in the world?

Is it because the Rena disaster should have served as an early warning of the fact that if things happen at sea our ability to control them is severely limited?

 And if that had been an oil spill from a drill site the leakage would have been so, so much more ?

Is it that even though companies and governments pretend they can actually mitigate the risks of these "extreme energy "sources , they simply can not.

BP couldn't and its a big company. It's even one that has worked hard on its social responsibility and it was helpless and useless in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico spillage. Barely 2 years ago and we have forgotten.

Remember the US Government ,the country with perhaps the most military and other toys in the world. They were also powerless to stop the flow of oil and their massive destruction. So do we really want to chance that TAG Oil, whose interest in NZ is clearly viewed through dollar bills, and the tiny NZ Government with no experience in this at all, can do better. I don't.