Bill offers certainty to industry: PM
New Zealand’s oil industry is urging the Government not to rush through a law change that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern says is being passed quickly to allow new oil exploration permits to be offered.
Yesterday the environment select committee issued its report on the Crown Minerals (Petroleum) Amendment Bill, with the majority recommending only minor changes to the text.
The legislation would give effect to the Government’s April 12 announcement that it will cease offering new offshore oil exploration permits. Permits will be offered in Taranaki for three more years, but may not be continued beyond that.
The legislation is due to go through the committee stages on Thursday and is expected to have its third and final reading next week, after a truncated public submission and select committee process.
Yesterday, Ardern told reporters that the reason for the short public submission was in order to pass the legislation to enable the Government to run the 2018 block offer process, in which exploration permits in Taranaki will be offered to the industry.
‘‘This is now a process we’re going through in order to allow the block offer 2018 to go ahead.’’
A spokesman for Energy Minister Megan Woods has confirmed that even under the Government’s timetable, the 2018 block offer will in fact be undertaken some time in 2019.
Ardern did not once mention the ban on off-shore permits in her press conference.
‘‘We are giving certainty to those who currently hold permits and those who would be seeking an on-shore block offer that we will honour the commitments around those permits.’’
During the select committee process, the Government faced warnings that uncertainty created by the decision was behind a fall in business confidence and had made New Zealand a riskier place in the eyes of investors.
Cameron Madgwick, chief executive of oil and gas industry body Pepanz, urged the Government not to rush the legislation, something he had written to the select committee about.
‘‘It’s very much our preference to have a good process rather than a fast process, and we would prefer to have that over a block offer this year,’’ Madgwick said.
‘‘The Government can be under no illusion that it’s for the industry’s benefit that the block offer needs to be held in 2018.
‘‘If there are outstanding questions about whether this is going to reduce emissions, whether it is going to have an impact on regional New Zealand, and whether it is going to have an impact on the cost of living of New Zealanders, surely taking some time to get expert independent evidence to that effect is what should be done.’’