Temporary stop for Pohokura gas field

PRODUCTION from the offshore Pohokura gas field is to be cut for a third time in a year next month.

OMV, which last month took over operation of the field from Shell, plans a range of interventions in the field’s offshore wells to ‘‘reestablish’’ the deliverability from those assets.

The work means that, for safety reasons, production from the five offshore wells will be stopped for about 30 days — 12 days in February and a further 18 days during the rest of the campaign.

‘‘We anticipate that the onshore wells will be available to flow during this campaign, with no impact on onshore production levels,’’ Gabriel Selischi, OMV’s senior vicepresident for Australasia, said.

Pohokura, now owned by OMV and Todd Energy, is the country’s biggest gas producer. The field, off the coast of Waitara, typically delivers more than 70 petajoules of gas annually from five offshore wells and three wells drilled from onshore.

OMV acquired Shell’s 48% stake, and its 83.8% interest in the Maui field, as part of a $US578 million ($NZ849 million) deal announced last March and finalised over the ChristmasNew Year break.

In recent years Pohokura has met about a third of the country’s gas demand.

The latest shutdown is likely to be bad news for power prices, which soared in October when repair work at the field coincided with declining South Island lake levels and other generation outages.

Despite reduced demand, wholesale electricity prices have remained high so far this year, due to a combination of low wind generation, planned maintenance shutdowns, declining snowpack in the South Island, and concerns about gas supplies.

Snow storage in Meridian Energy’s Waitaki catchment was about 49% below average, the firm estimated on January 12. Snowpack is important because it becomes water for hydroelectric generation when it melts.

Wholesale electricity cost an average $157.57/MWh in Auckland in the seven days ended Friday, according to Energy Link data.

Mr Selischi said the exact duration and timing of the offshore shutdown periods will be subject to operational requirements and the weather.

The work schedule and the anticipated impact on gas availability has been provided to customers, and OMV would provide regular updates as operations progress. Other stakeholders, including Transpower, the Gas Industry Company and the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment had also been advised of the campaign, he said.

Early last year, production from Pohokura’s offshore wells was halted while Shell investigated leaks in the field’s pipeline to shore. Production was halted again in September, when the main shutoff valve on the offshore production platform was not working as it should. — BusinessDesk