Australian oil consortium to drill in NZ - Breaking News - Business - Breaking News

An Australian consortium of oil companies will begin drilling for oil in the Canterbury basin in August.
Beach Petroleum says seismic surveys suggest the Cutter 1 well could contain a reservoir of 80 million barrels of oil equivalent (boes).
The well is located 21km off the coast near Oamaru, about 100km north-northeast of Dunedin.
It will be drilled by Beach and two other investors, Tap Oil and Australia Worldwide Exploration.
Beach holds a 20 percent interest in the venture.
Results from the drilling should be known by the end of the year, a Beach spokesperson, Kevin Skinner, said.
"There hasn't been a lot [of drilling] in that area at all, so it's a bit of frontier country."
Mr Skinner said there were a handful of wells in the area, and one within the same boundaries had turned out to be a sub-commercial gas find.
Cutter 1 is Beach's first offshore target in New Zealand, and part of an $100m-plus expansion of the company's exploration program.
Beach aimed to increase annual production to above 5 million boes in 2007-2008 - compared to 1.4m this year.
The well will be drilled by the rig Ocean Patriot. It will take about a month to drill to a depth of around 3000m in 75m deep waters.
Other oil companies drilling in the Canterbury basin included Canadian company TAG and Green Gate, which believed it had a promising block in north Canterbury.
Origin Energy, Contact Energy's Australian major stakeholder, has permits in South Canterbury.
Green Gate director Stacey Radford said last year that oil rigs would dot North Canterbury in the next few years.
He said huge sums had been spent on oil exploration off the Taranaki coast, but little had been spent looking for oil off the South Island.
© 2006 AAP