GNS Science has been awarded funding for a four-year research programme to improve the chances of finding oil and gas accumulations in New Zealand's sedimentary basins.

The programme will develop new workstation-ready data products for the exploration industry that will provide new knowledge and help to reduce the uncertainties involved in petroleum exploration.

Kupe Production Station in Taranaki. Photo - NZOG

It has won funding of $2.4 million-a-year for four years in MBIE's latest contestable funding round, announced by Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce this week.

The programme's three main themes will be improving the understanding of the rock formations that generate petroleum, the relationships between petroleum fluids and their ‘source rocks', and the way petroleum moves and is trapped in sub-surface structures.

Its aim is to encourage more successful exploration activity in New Zealand's established and frontier basins.

Incorporated into the programme will be seven New Zealand PhD students who will be working on particular aspects of the research.

In most cases the programme will provide them with an annual stipend, plus fieldwork and laboratory expenses.

GNS Science will lead the research with the support of a consortium that includes four New Zealand universities, four overseas universities, and the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR).

To underline the programme's end-user credentials, GNS Science has succeeded in getting ‘co-funding' of $100,000-a-year from four large international oil exploration companies - Anadarko, ExxonMobil, OMV, and Shell - three of which are already operating in New Zealand.

The scope of the work is broad and will include proven basins such as Taranaki as well as ‘frontier' areas where there is no petroleum production at present.

An important component will be engagement with a broad range of end-users and stakeholders including community groups and iwi.

The new programme is titled 'Understanding petroleum source rocks, fluids, and plumbing systems in New Zealand basins: a critical basis for future oil and gas discoveries.'

Programme Leader Richard Sykes, of GNS Science, says past ‘modest-sized' finds such as the Tui Field in 2003 had dramatically increased New Zealand's Gross Domestic Product.

"And major discoveries such as Maui in 1969 can be economy-changing. Work by GNS Science in recent years has been publicly credited by the exploration industry with helping to lift and focus exploration activity in Taranaki Basin,” says Richard.

The New Zealand government would use outputs from this research to inform decisions on new acreage for permitting to attract new exploration investment in New Zealand.

"Compelling exploration blocks backed by high quality scientific data will promote more competitive bidding, higher quality work programmes, and increase the chances of new discoveries."