Kauri Oil and Gas

Kauri Oil & Gas is firmly of the opinion that New Zealand can be another Norway, a country with a US$1 trillion sovereign fund derived from oil & gas. Norway established their Government Petroleum Fund in 1990. By 2001 Norway was rated #1 on the UN socio-economic standard of living ranking, a position it has held for 17 of the subsequent years. As a geologist, I fully accept climate change, and a human signature in the current phase, but don’t accept that carbon dioxide is the villain. Measurements confirm that incoming solar radiation increased during the period 1950-1993, with far larger effects than CO2 concentrations, and that ozone depletion was the cause. Kauri contends that it was nuclear testing in the Pacific that caused the ozone depletion and that it was ozone depletion, not fossil fuels, that resulted in the 1 degree temperature increase. But while NZ has elected to turn away from fossil fuels, markets are opening in Australia and S.E.Asia for LNG to offset coal use in electricity generation and reduce air pollution.

Kauri believes Taranaki Is a world class hydrocarbon province. The basin has ubiquitous oil and gas shows yet, despite often good reservoir quality, zones fail to flow, or flow at sub-commercial rates. Kauri believes this is the result of reservoir damage caused by using the wrong drilling technology for the reservoir, and specifically for the pressure regime. Understanding the charge history of a field leads to a better understanding of fluid distribution and pressure systems.  This in turn leads to optimised drilling and production technologies.

I have spent the last 10 years reviewing open-file data for Taranaki Basin – and in the process building a much more detailed understanding of petroleum systems elements – structural events and timing, reservoir and seal facies and distribution, volcanism, source facies, quality and maturity, migration mechanisms etc etc

Kauri Oil & Gas has built a portfolio of over 30 bypassed opportunities, located both within existing permits and in areas either available via Blocks Offers (onshore) or likely to become available when there is a change of government (offshore).

Kauri is interested in deals with Permit holders, or with Operators and/or investors seeking opportunities in a low-risk commercial environment with large identified upside in the success scenario.

I am a kiwi geologist with 40 years of experience in exploration, appraisal and development of oil and gas. I have been involved in, and led, successful exploration programmes in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines, including Chief Geologist or Exploration Manager roles with Petrocorp, Santos, TAG Oil, Genesis Energy and Crown Minerals.

I am a strong advocate of a first-principles  approach to petroleum systems analysis, and believe to understand fluid migration and entrapment in the subsurface requires knowledge of the pressure regimes and controls.

I, like most geoscientists I have met in resource industries, consider myself an environmentalist. We take a pragmatic view that our standard of living requires the use of natural resources, and it is our responsibility to discover and produce those resources with minimal negative impact – on the environment or society. Oil and gas have enabled the greatest advancements in human history – in reducing poverty, improving life expectancies and all the social benefits that followed – health, literacy, income, transportation etc etc.  As outlined in my review, the human race has unwittingly been conducting a huge geo-engineering project for the last 150 years by recycling carbon into the atmosphere. Unfortunately, because climate scientists have clung to an old paradigm, we are depriving future generations of cheap, clean energy and instead wasting trillions of dollars in an unnecessary and futile pursuit to rid the atmosphere of carbon dioxide

Every energy option has benefits and risks/costs and natural gas remains the most attractive fuel – plentiful, energy-rich, clean, least harmful and smallest footprint option – once you get past the misrepresentation of carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Natural gas is also a renewable resource – the thick coal measures that source oil and gas in Taranaki are currently within the generation window and gas is being actively generated.

This is not an anti-renewables statement; each energy source must be compared fairly against competitors. What puzzles me is the absence of scrutiny for other renewables – alarmists support massive wind farms offshore, where there is a risk they will be more damaging than offshore mining, interfere with whale communication and navigation, and kill birds, particularly large, slow seabirds such as the northern Albatross.

Here are some submissions, publications and reports that detail Kauri’s position re climate change and provide examples of my approach to exploration.

Webster et al 2000 Cooper Basin Hydrodynamics SPE 64281

Webster & Adams 1996 Geopressures and Migration Onshore Taranaki

Webster AAPG Taranaki Overpressure 2011

Open Letter to Chief Science Adviser 21 Jan 2021

Letter to Geoscientists 13 Dec 2020

Kauri Submission to Climate Change Commission 15 March 2021

Shell Outlook for LNG 2022

Kauri Position on Climate Change (Updated Nov 2023)

Kauri Oil & Gas has completed a review of current Climate Science since it is having such a profound effect on the oil & gas industry, the economy of NZ and the wellbeing of the current generation. The review is on our Presentations page and has very different conclusions – read it before you dismiss it as predictable oil & gas hype. The next step is to disseminate this information so New Zealanders can make informed choices.

Useful Links:

NZ Petroleum & Minerals (https://www.nzpam.govt.nz/)

Petroleum Exploration & Production NZ  (https://www.pepanz.com/)

Mark Webster
Email: info@kaurioilandgas.co.nz