NZ govt's oil exploration programme

Oil prices have fallen to $35 a barrel and on their way to $20 a barrel.Unsustainable in anybody's language.

Government’s oil permit announcement symbol of “massive” failure

Greenpeace.

Press release - December 16, 2015

The absence of deep sea oil permits in the Government’s just-announced 2015 block offer is another “nail in the coffin” of New Zealand’s oil programme, says Greenpeace executive director Dr Russel Norman.

This morning it was revealed that nine new petroleum exploration permits have been granted, six of which are offshore, and none of which are in deep water. Of the almost 430,000 square kilometres offered, there were only successful bids on 12,000 of them. All of these are in the Taranaki region.

Norman says the fact that none of the permits are for deep sea drilling, despite the fact the Government has been fervently pushing a deep water agenda, is proof that the Prime Minister’s oil drilling programme is failing.

 “John Key has continued to insist that we must look for the very oil that we can’t burn if we want to avoid catastrophic climate change, despite evidence that it’s a dying industry,” he says.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the lack of deep sea permits is because no oil companies actually showed interest in sticking around in New Zealand deep water next year. It’s no longer financially viable: The market worldwide is experiencing massive failure,” he says.

Recently Brazil had its worst permit offer process in a decade, when only a small fraction of the permits offered were taken up by oil companies.

International oil giants such as Shell and Statoil didn’t even bother to submit any bids.

A similar situation is occurring in deep sea permitting for the US Gulf of Mexico, where the number of new permits are half that of last year.

And in New Zealand, Statoil has just revealed it lost more than NZD $33 million (USD $22,384,160) in 2014 from its oil exploration work here.

The loss appeared in the oil giant’s 2014 annual report, which was released several weeks ago, but has been unreported until now.

Norman says John Key is “completely reckless” for continuing to push of an oil agenda that is “clearly dying”.

“To date, no deep sea oil has been found here, and despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent, John Key obsessively continues to insist on subsidising the oil drillers with taxpayers’ hard earned cash,” he says.

“Just think of the jobs that could have been created if Government time and money had been spent on cheaper, cleaner and smarter options like solar and wind. It’s an outrageous betrayal.”

Upon his return from the Paris climate change conference earlier this week, Key stated he had no plans to cut back on the mining of oil, gas and coal in New Zealand, despite calling on the world to stop supporting the fossil fuel industry at the talks.

The just-announced offshore oil permits have been awarded to OMV NZ Limited, Todd Exploration and Mont D’Or Resources Limited.