maari delayed until october

UPDATE 1-NZ Maari oilfield delayed; OMV opens Asia trade base

26 Aug 2008 - 19:41

(Adds details on Singapore office)

By Maryelle Demongeot

SINGAPORE, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Bad weather has delayed the startup of New Zealand's 35,000 barrels per day (bpd) Maari oilfield to October from August, an official with field operator OMV said on Tuesday.

Austrian oil and gas company OMV has opened its first trading office in Singapore to market Maari crude, but the field's startup has again been delayed from initial plans for production to start in March or April this year, the head of the new office said.

"Because of bad weather, production has been delayed," said Dan Eng, managing director of the OMV marketing office in the city-state. Upstream developments regularly start later than forecast.

Maari will yield a light sweet crude, with an estimated American Petroleum Institute gravity of 34.6 and a low-sulphur content of around 0.09 percent.

The Maari oilfield is estimated to have recoverable reserves of around 50 million barrels. It is located off the South Taranaki coast and oil will be produced via a Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel.

Maari is New Zealand's second major oilfield to come onstream since July 2007, when the Tui field started and briefly rose to 43,000 bpd.

Tui's output has already fallen and is expected to average around 25,000 bpd in the financial year ending June 2009, even as the field's reserves were raised to 50.1 million barrels earlier this year.

OMV's Singapore office will be the company's first trading base in Asia, which could also help it market its other equity crudes, such as from Libya, where it produced about 32,000 bpd last year.

The company is in the process of hiring staff and expects a small team of two to three people to start with, Eng said.

OMV holds a 69 percent operating interest in the Maari field, with Australia's Horizon oil with 10 percent, New Zealand's Todd Energy (16 percent) and Cue Taranaki Pty (5 percent) holding the remaining stakes.

OMV is already a large player in New Zealand where it owns a 26 percent stake in the Pohokura gas field, the country's second-largest, which came onstream in October 2006. (Editing by Ramthan Hussain)

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Keywords: OMV NEWZEALAND/MAARI