Shell's New Zealand Gas Exploration Meeting Expectation

Shell has said that its two month old campaign to find gas in New Zealand’s Maui field is meeting expectation.

Shell New Zealand chairman Rob Jager said campaign off the Taranaki coast which could last into early next year, the New Zealand Herald reported .

The first well had hit its target depth and results had "come in on prognosis", the newspaper quoted him as saying. "There's gas there, the question is how much and can we produce."

Shell is also a partner in the onshore Kapuni field where hydraulic fracturing is planned to free up tight gas and the highly productive Pohokura field in offshore Taranaki.

The company is looking to the outer reaches of the Exclusive Economic Zone for its next play, applying for a petroleum prospecting licence for two years in the New Caledonia basin to the north-west of New Zealand, the New Zealand Herald said.