Anadarko says that its oil well drillship, the Noble Bob Douglas, will leave Raglan waters at the end of January for its next prospect off the Otago coast. The controversial drilling has been the target of ongoing protests in Raglan since the drilling began off the Raglan coast in late November. The offshore Raglan well in 1520 metre ultra deep water, will reach a depth of just over 3km below the sea bottom late this month.
The NZ Herald reported that Anadarko’s NZ spokesperson, Mr Alan Seay, was on the drillship on Friday 10th January to get an update on progress. Interesting that Mr Seay found time for this visit, when in the past he has given various reasons for not being able to come and discuss the drilling with Raglandic folk.
Mr Seay has announced that the Raglan drilling is a ‘tight hole’. That is oil industry jargon for secret. So the company won’t be releasing any information on what it has found. Mr Seay did say that, “progress is good and broadly in line with what we originally set ourselves”, whatever that means! Anadarko NZ is a private company owned by a Cayman Islands company, which is in turn owned by a Texan company. This means it is not listed on the NZ Stock Exchange and as it has no business partners listed on the NZ exchange it is not required by exchange rules to report on progress.
The Green Party says that opposition is growing in New Zealand to deep-sea oil drilling. The Greens have launched a campaign calling for Anadarko, the oil-exploration company from Texas, to get out of New Zealand. Energy Minister Simon Bridges, is rubbishing this claim saying that all the polls he’s seen clearly show most New Zealanders are at least moderately in favour of exploring petroleum opportunities.