Re: the offshore oil potential. As I was banging on a few weeks ago - NZ should urgently form its own national oil company. We must avoid at all costs a UK North Sea scenario - where the oil revenues have been squandered - our model should be the Norwegian one.

But andy , we need the royalties to fund the monster welfare state that Helen and Michael bequeathed us . We can't pare it down , that'll bring the wrath of Sir Humphrey Appleby upon us . In the civil service we rest . Amen .

Granted the potential risks of the NZ$ becoming a petrocurrency need to be managed. However as I re-iterated above we should follow the Norwegian model NOT the UK one.

The Norwegian model is based around the formation of Statoil (the State oil company) in the 1970's - see here:

http://www.statoil.com/en/about/history/Pages/default3.aspx

Most significantly the Norwegians created a national fund into which oil royalty money has flowed.

http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2008/POL070908A.htm

The second article is a 'must read' on how to do this sort of thing correctly.

Well Yippieeeeeeeeeeee...calls for another rant, in case they forget they are the PROBLEM, not the SOLUTION.

The finding of OIL (maybe)...will enable Rodney, Hone-y and Peter, and Winston and John and David and....and ...and ..the rest of the WASTRELS to keep FLYING around the world achieving nothing, but having a great time at our expense,well into RETIREMENT.

I hope they find OIL fast and get it out of the ground, as the rest of us are getting sick and tired of their ACT-ions, allegedly in the NATIONAL interest, THOUGH....at OUR LABOURED.....cost...TAXPAYERS.

The millions of HANGERS ON...must be rubbing their hands in GLEE at the thought of being able to SPEND more than they actually PRODUCE, over the next few years.

Just like they have for the past 30 years... I know about.

The billions we have to OVER borrow in the meanwhile...in the perhaps VAIN hope that there may be OIL, will no doubt evaporate into the POLLIES & BANKS pockets via TAX rorts and TAX evasion.

Blatant theft is still a CRIME in my book, no matter WHO perpetrates it.

Just like HANDOVER and ALLIED alliance, Just like a certain WELL KNOWN entertainer who gets away with sex crimes, there appears to be one rule for the (maybe)...RICH manipulative MISCREANTS and another for the SUCKERS paying TAXES who keep these idiots in POWER and their GREEDY ways.

They forget we KNOW who they are. So should everyone in the WORLD, so they can never do the same again.

When will the perpetrators of these CRIMES be held up to REAL JUSTICE.

Seems we are not alone with this problem...Someone else has been milking the system, besides FONTERRA and the CRAFARS.

http://www.sphere.com/2009/11/18/a-california-town-reels-in-wake-of-crea...

Wakey Wakey ...NZ.

TAXPAYERS & VOTERS UNITE...we need a new SHEPHERD, not the OLD FLOCK of liars and cheats.

The Norwegians are actually in the post-peak phase too. No amount of stored wealth, buys you energy in a depleting market, for any length of time.

She is actually a classic example (soon) as Indonesia is (now) of the exporting country-becomes-importing country syndrome.

It goes like this: You find oil under your soil. You produce it. You export it, and you use more and more of it internally. When you internal supply-rate peaks (see: Cantarell) then the amount you can export is not only reduced by the supply depletion rate, but also by your continued increase of internal consumption.

That weasel pops too, just a little later than the UK model.

Andy Hamilton,

You are damn right! ... but then, you'd need politicians with a very long term horizon coupled with corresponding political will, and even more importantly the general public asking for them and voting them into power. Can anyone here see that happen? Sadly, I can't right now, unless there is a major change in many people's thinking.

Before any of this would likely happen, someone would need to invent a Spin-O-Meter filter apparatus, which will be distributed to every home in the country free of charge. Then we may be able to start having a real debate in this country about the things that really matter, and we may have a chance again to make NZ a truly world leading country, one day...

I wonder if our politicians, and system ,are really that bad?

http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2009/cpi...

Andy H - true. I'd prefer us to use the remaining oil-lubed time to put our ship on a sustainable course though. It's sooooooo do-able, and yet we waste time.

Seems to me that history won't record our current leaders as the new wave, so much as the last triumphant whimper of an intellectually-impaired epoch.

I guess we outlived the Inquisition, McCarthy and Spongebob Squarepants.

Maybe we'll outlive this lot too. :)

ps Malcolm: don't worry, it will all pan out!

If NZ dug up the oil, sold it, kept 20% of takings to put in place and develop alternative energy technologies and paid off the national debt with the rest, wouldn't we all end up better off? I guess that's too simple.

Hi Blair
Love your website. Good for you for setting up such a venture, I am sure you will do very well.

"Today I am announcing the end of the consensus around the policy targets and tools of the Reserve Bank. Labour wants to see a step change in our export performance." Goff (Herald)
Haaaarhaaahaaha...what next from those fools. They had 9 years to do something positive and what did we get?..a bloody expensive trainset and a bloated state sector producing bugger all but red tape and more stupidity. Go away Goff. Labour are failures. Time to give National a chance to prove they too can make a spectacular ballsup of running the property ponzi scheme.

Only thing I can think of Les is a drop in the polls. You have to wait for the poodle media to wake up and start with the education of the masses on what "good govt" really means. Given the average reading age out there is 12yrs...this will take some time. Key is all into polls. If he smells risk in Nov 2011, expect instant action and some new spin being spun by the spinners will take place.

Yes, to the vote for the Norwegian example - and yes, if they called for New Zealanders to invest capital in the venture, I'd be in it boots and all.

I've been looking for a decent place to park some capital which has a long-term outlook that benefits my grandchildren and has the potential to keep them Kiwis for the rest of their lives.

@Les, Wally, Greg, they, like the lot before them, are all tossers, don't get your hopes up.

Anyway - cross your fingers for a good drilling season in offshore Taranaki in the next 6 months. There is a lot of drilling but keep your eyes on Albacore (to be spudded imminently - operated by Westech/NZOG) and Hoki (spudded Jan/Feb 2010 AWE/NZOG/Others). Either might be a 100m plus barrel oilfield - both are wildcats. If either came in things would start to look very exciting - particurly since the 100m barrel Maari field is just on stream.

+ 1 Andy .. great links and info as usual !!

Good stuff about the oil prospects eh.
The comparison with Norway is striking, they are now sitting on a truly impressive sovereign wealth fund and lets not forget that a lot of this was achieved at a time of very low oil prices. $100 oil is now baked in the cake IMO,
What's the betting Labour's already working out how to piss the proceeds away a la Gordon Brown and the Nats'll want to flog it off to big foreign business for pennies in the dollar, what time horizon do these fools work to? Meantime the greens will say leave it in the ground...Shakes head
We need to start ringing the bell on this, FOLLOW THE NORWEGIAN MODEL

The fact NZ is a sunken continent indicates that we should be sitting on a lot of oil and Nat gas.

What nobody talks about is the cost. The Southern basin is not the North Sea its a very difficult enviroment to get oil out of. While there is lots of oil in the southern basin thats not the problem the problem is getting that oil out of the southern basin and onto tankers.

No-one is talking about nationalising the oil industry - and thats NOT what Norway did - please re-read again how Statoil was originally set up.

Crown minerals are already providing the seed data - they make seismic data available directly to companies at low/no cost.

I have no doubt you will hear a lot of the 'we can't go down this route, the oil campanies won't get involved' (strangely enough a lot of that will come from the sponsors of said companies).

Fine. Well leave the oil in situ then. Its an appreciating asset in a peakoil world. The oil companies WILL come around to it as their prospects elsewhere recede.

Hell 20 years ago (when some of the earliest discoveries were made) the oil companies were under no pressure to exploit our fields so nothing happened. Now this year is the busiest season yet for offshore drilling. What changed in the previous 20 years? A great deal of easy to obtain oil disappeared from elsewhere.

Move forward 5 years into the future and the liklihood is the pressure on the oil companies will be even more intense. NZ may be a difficult physical environment for the oil companies to work in, but we are a much 'safer' country to run an investment in than 3/4s of the OPEC nations for example.

Its a discussion we need to be having NOW, not when and if (here is hoping) one of the exploration wells turns up an elephant field.

As for the Southern Basin being difficult - sure, but then so are the latest discoveries off the coast of Brazil - jeez there each well costs $US200 to drill and they are going through 2000m of molten salt underneath 3000m of rock and under 3000m of water!

And right on cue - we have a proposal from AWE to target a 500m barrel prospect:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/3077658/Wanted-partners-to-ta...

AND I am delighted to read in this report -

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/3076602/60b-of-oil-off-New-Zeal...

THAT:

'Another report to the Government by private sector analysts McDouall Stuart recommends setting up a national oil company, owned by the Crown, to manage the potentially enormous resource.

Other options suggested include the Crown underwriting oil drilling equipment and infrastructure, directing state-owned energy companies such as Genesis or Solid Energy into oil exploration, and requiring the Superannuation Fund or ACC to invest in oil futures.'

Hooray, now someone is thinking ahead.

As I said above - if one of these drills hits a elephant there will be a rush to NZ - and we MUST set out terms to the oil companies that maximise the benefit to NZ.

The Cargo Cult is alive and well in New Zealand.

No Oil Well is going to save New Zealand from its much deserved fate. :lol:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/3081649/Five-Mile-venture-sol...

Don't the investors have a right to know what it sold for and the terms of the deal?

DNZ's share offer opens next Monday, with listing expected on December 17.

This is a share offer that may be best avoided!