Man with a mission

Highlighting the continuing critical importance of petroleum to the New Zealand economy is the job that PEPANZ’s John Pfahlert has taken on amid unprecedented change for the petroleum industry. The boy from the Coast is also determined to see New Zealand’s long-term self-sufficiency in oil and gas improve.    BY NEIL RITCHIE

John Pfahlert – the public face of the kiwi petroleum industry – says his appointment as executive officer of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Association of New Zealand late last year was really “a return to my roots”.

While not a formally trained geoscientist, or someone who has been part of a geotechnical team in a multinational oil company, he has had an interest in “subsurface matters” for decades – since his university studies in geography and geology.

He also knows what it’s like to be pilloried for his faith that oil, gas and minerals are an essential part of modern-day life.

The son of German immigrants who ran a family bakery on the West Coast until the early 1990s, he was born in Hokitika in 1958.

After completing his secondary schooling, Pfahlert went to Canterbury University where he completed an MSc in geography, returning to the coast in the early 1980s to work for the NZ Forest Service.

Following the restructuring of various government departments, he shifted to Wellington where he worked for the Department of Conservation (DOC) as resource use manager, responsible for the prospecting and exploration licence applications that minerals and oil and gas companies made.

“In my five years there I would have been involved in hundreds of minerals prospecting applications or petroleum exploration applications.

“I remember it well – Helen Clark, now Prime Minister, was Conservation Minister at the time.

“I then jumped the fence, so to speak, and went to work for the New Zealand Mining and Exploration Association (NZMEA) in Wellington.

“That turned out to be a bit of a difficult time at first as some DOC people would yell ‘traitor’ to me from across the road or not travel in the same lifts as me... I guess they felt I had betrayed ‘the cause’ as I was representing some mining companies that were then wanting to mine the Coromandel. 

“And it was there, at NZEMA, that I first met Richard Tweedie, now managing director of Todd Energy, New Zealand’s largest privately owned energy company. He was a NZMEA board member then, so it’s interesting our paths have crossed once more at Pepanz.

“My NZMEA days were also my first encounter with Pepanz, or Peanz as it was then, as I shared an office with then executive officer, Roly Metge.”

Another five years and Pfahlert moved again, this time to the New Zealand Fishing Industry Association that represented the interests of major fishing companies such as Sealord, Sanford and Talleys.

Then in the late 1990s, he became chief executive of the New Zealand Contractors’ Federation and managing director of Contrafed Publishing, the federation’s publishing arm that puts out Contractor magazine, now in its 31st year, and other magazines, including Energy NZ.

Lastly, he was chief executive of the Building Industry Federation of New Zealand and chairman of the pan-industry body, the New Zealand Construction Industry Council.

And last September he took over from Mike Patrick, who is now working as a consultant for the Nelson office of Resource and Environmental Management.

 “Why did I join Pepanz?  Because it was a fresh challenge and, in a way, I was returning to my roots, having had an interest in geological, subsurface matters, for decades – essentially since before graduating.”

He says one of his priorities as Pepanz executive officer will be to highlight the continuing critical importance of petroleum to the New Zealand economy.

“Petroleum products will continue powering the New Zealand economy, and that of every developed and nearly every developing country in the world, for at least the next 20 years.”

Even the New Zealand government admits that, with the Ministry for Economic Development’s latest Energy Outlook saying oil, mostly imported, and natural gas will continue to supply over 50 percent of the New Zealand’s primary energy needs to at least 2030.

Another priority will be to improve New Zealand’s long-term self-sufficiency in oil and gas – which was once over 50 percent but now languishes at only 14 percent – something that will improve this country’s current account (formerly balance of payments) figures by billions of dollars through foreign exchange earnings or import substitution measures.

New Zealand has already started this process through the development of the offshore Taranaki Pohokura gas-condensate (light oil) and Tui Area oil fields.

The other offshore Taranaki major projects – Maari oil and Kupe gas-condensate – that are scheduled to be completed during 2008-09 will continue that self-sufficiency climb.

However, though this quartet of projects will briefly quadruple New Zealand’s self-sufficiency to approximately 60 percent, more oil and gas discoveries will be needed during the next decade, along with further moves to renewable fuels.

John Pfahlert says natural gas is the best, relatively cheap alternative fuel to crude oil or coal, with the versatility to replace distillate or coal in fossil-fuelled power stations, or to power motor vehicles, industry, businesses and homes.

“I do not have too much of a problem with the governmnet’s draft energy strategy, despite it signalling a move away from fossil fuels.

“Governments around the world are facing climate change issues and New Zealand is well placed in that regard with our already high level of renewable energy supplies – hydroelectricity, geothermal, wind, biofuels and solar—which usually supply over half our electricity.

“But it’s going to be quite difficult to get any form of major alternative electricity generation quickly. The government can signal it wants more hydro, wind and tidal but nothing is more easy and quick than a new gas-fired power station.

“The oil and gas industry should have no immediate concerns regarding this draft energy strategy... gas is better than coal but both will needed in the short to perhaps medium-term in terms of security of our energy supply.

“Pepanz believes it’s not a case of renewables or natural gas but renewables plus gas and we made submissions to the government to that effect.

“I also believe people do not really understand that some renewable energy sources are economic only at even higher prices than we have now and that they also have their own problems, such as days when there is little wind or sunshine.”

Last December Energy and Climate Change Minister David Parker released the government’s draft energy strategy, saying its aim was to ensure New Zealand developed a sustainable and affordable energy system, with as much new electricity generation as possible coming from renewable sources to minimise greenhouse gas emissions.

Then, in mid-February, Prime Minister Helen Clark set New Zealand the ambitious goal of becoming the world’s first greenhouse gas neutral country, pledging big emission cuts by government and setting compulsory targets for biofuels – that the clean-burning fuels make up 3.4 percent of all fuel sold by 2012.

Oil companies immediately hit back, warning New Zealand motorists of likely higher fuel prices because of the costs associated with blending biofuels into petrol and diesel from April next year.