The 40-year development of our largest crude oilfield is flowing from all five production wells on the Maari field, with losers and winners along the way. And the final chapter can’t be written yet, as Maari could be the just beginning of a larger oil complex sitting in the south Taranaki seas.
It’s been a long and somewhat tortuous path for the offshore Taranaki Kupe gas field from its discovery 23 years ago to development taking almost a quarter of a century.
Hydro electricity generation still has vast potential for expansion.
Hot rock technology is either too good to be true, or a perfect, clean energy answer for future electricity generation.
Paul Callow, a partner in Corporate Finance at Deloitte, looks at the state of the country’s electricity industry and asks whether it is not time to finish the reforms?
It’s been likened to doing open heart surgery on a patient who is not only awake but running a marathon during the entire operation – this is the New Zealand Refining Company’s $180 million Point Forward Project at Ruakaka, Northland.
Two Taranaki projects – the 200 megawatt gas peaker plant at Stratford and the Ahuroa underground gas storage facility – are about to radically strengthen the country’s gas and electricity industries.
The head of New Zealand’s largest energy company generally keeps a low public profile, but Rob Jager, country chair of Shell New Zealand, talks to Lindsay Clark about the company’s 30 years of operation here.
The country’s most southern province has a lot at stake hanging on announcements, expected about now, concerning oil exploration in the Great South Basin.
The contract to supply Meridian's West Wind project with turbines was Siemen's first wind farm deal in Australasia, but not the last.
Among the more cutting edge projects in the energy pioneering front line, are those concerned with large-scale solar generation.
EnergyNZ talks to a boat designer who says he has an innovative answer to marine power generation and is about to launch a versatile wind turbine that can be placed almost anywhere.
Climate scientist Dr Chris de Freitas laments that we have been lead like sheep by climate change hysterics.
The Government has committed to greenhouse gas emissions reductions of between 10 and 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020, however, Greenhouse Policy Coalition economic analysis say this would impose a cost on each Kiwi of $1400 a year, or $5600 per household of four.
The Commerce Commission has vowed to focus on any businesses making carbon claims to ensure they are accurate, appropriately substantiated and do not mislead consumers, warns Bryan Gundersen and Hayden Wilson from Kensington Swan. Failing to do this may result in a breach of the Fair Trading Act and the possibility of incurring hefty penalties.
The economy will recover and when it does the oil and gas industry will need people to fill jobs, says Sheree Long, the manager of the Petroleum Skills Association.
Solid Energy, which owns millions of tonnes of coal reserves in the Mataura Valley, is currently investigating the development of a new lignite processing plant, which would be the first of its type in New Zealand.
The golden years for micro-hydro were from 1888 to 1938, and a new age in small hydro schemes could be the answer to our energy future.
Hydro still beckons
Mining heat
Electricity in limbo
Refinery heart surgery
Gas projects to the rescue
A long climb to the top
Southern expectations
Chasing the wind
Reaping the sun
From boats to generation
Bias or blindness... emission targets