Shane Jones: Energy Minister on the opening of a new production well in the Pohokura gas field

The Energy Minister says he's doing his best to improve the stability of energy supply. 

A new gas well at the Pohokura Production Station in Taranaki was switched on this morning. 

It will provide 4 petajoules of gas a year, which could power about 146,000 homes annually. 

Shane Jones says it won't be a silver bullet - but it will help. 

"So I'm working on various proposals as to how we can accelerate both money into the industry - and genuine economic ability."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Right now, Shane Jones is celebrating a new natural gas
well in Tartanaki. This is from an existing field, the
poor hoor Kuda production well should deliver four petidules into
New Zealand's energy grid each year. The Minister for Resources
with me tonight, home, Minister.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Goorder. Greetings folks, So you've.

Speaker 1 (00:19):
Been in Tartanaki today. Can you just describe for us
how they're getting at this gas because it's quite interesting.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah. The site's called Pahorkuta, near the township of White
Patter seven and a half kilometers both out and down
into the bed of the sea, extracting from different cabinist
areas usable gas. I today actually stood next to the

(00:47):
seven and a half kilometers of coiled up steel pipe
that has been used.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
And it's exit. There's an offshore field, but you actually
access it from on shore using this big reg.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah. So they added infrastructure set up. The main rig
was called Big Bend. Big Ben's done the deal. Big
Bens moved on, hopefully to a new site with even
better prospects. The infrastructure links the onshore apparatus to seven
and a half kilometers off the coastline and down on

(01:24):
a some of doubt diagonal course, quite extraordinary engineering into
pockets of gas that are feasible to extract.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Which is good and great, And this is an existing
field we're getting, you know, we're sucking more out of it.
But it's only four petioles that they're going to get right,
and our production is down what more than twenty five percent?
So is this going to make a difference.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Well, there's about three hundred odd thousand households who rely
on gas. One hundred and forty six thousand households would
be serviced by the augmented supply that Omb announced today.
So yes, it's not inordinately large, But if you live

(02:11):
in one of those one hundred and forty six thousand
household it's not to be sneezed at.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
What about the companies that are turning gas off to
households and saying, no, we're not going to supply it anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, let's not hide from the fact. Ever since just
Ender sort to can the order and gas industry, it's
had a very negative effect on the sentiment and gas industry,
and we are in trying to invigorate and invigorate that
and turn it around. We see how gas works in

(02:44):
New Zealand is we need one foundation major user and
that major user is a Canadian company called Methodics, and
they make methanol and they supply it to various spots
around the world. And that's why the CEO was here
recently ensuring that I senior ministers, including the Prime Minister,
understand the gravity of the situation with the New Zealand

(03:06):
gas industry, and he was testing what will the government
do itself to de risk further exploration. So I'm working
on various proposals as to how we can accelerate both
money into the industry and genuine economic activity.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
The big hold up is what you do after that
you've finished.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Drilling, right, Yeah, So there's a piece of legislation wending
its way through Parliament and one of the testy pieces
of the legislations called decommissioning. I. After the gas field
is exhausted, what process do you take to remove the
infrastructure that's the pipes and the various other parts of

(03:48):
apparatus that have been sunk into the bed of the
sea to take out this natural resources.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
And so who's holding that up?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Well, you may or may not recall there was a
crowd called tamarind who walked away from their decommissioning obligations
four or five years ago. That left a bill of
three or four hundred million in rough figuess. So the industry,
you want to make sure that the provisions in the
statute don't disincentivize them from looking for more gaslus. At

(04:19):
the same time, I've been saying to them, I don't
want to undermine the Crown's balance sheet by leaving too
much of a bill of things go wrong with the
tax fairs.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
So this is not about a negotiation between coalition partners.
This is basically between you and the industry.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
Yeah. Well, obviously I'm a proxy for our group of
cabinet ministers, the entire troika of three parties. We all
campaigned hard to re establish gas as a firming contingency field,
and I accept there are other elements in the broader
political community who don't believe gas or coal should be used,

(04:56):
but they belong to the juvenile work tribe. So I
have no for the thinking.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
All right, still believe it?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
There?

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Thanks your time, Shane Jones, who's the Minister for Resources
with us tonight

Speaker 2 (05:07):
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