roc bulks up kaheru

Crown Minerals Dept of NZ has awarded roc & partners an extension to PEP 52181 yesterday- 21/2/2011.

OPERATOR Roc Oil has won a significant extension to its offshore Taranaki Kaheru lease, almost doubling the size of the permit, ensuring it captures all promising prospects and any other nearby plays or leads.

The Crown Minerals Group has awarded Roc and its partners the sought-after 140.4-square-kilometre extension to the north, northeast and south of the original 171.5sq.km lease PEP 52181.

The Ministry of Economic Development unit awarded Roc, Mosaic Oil, L&M Energy and state-owned Mighty River Power the Kaheru lease last May, though TAG Oil bought MRP's 20% stake in December, the first offshore move for the New Zealand-focused, listed Canadian junior.

Work program obligations involve completing specialist pre-stack depth migration processing and interpretation of existing 3D seismic data on Kaheru within the first year; and completing palinspastic reconstruction of the structure and studies on drilling, including prospect maturation and reserve estimation and risking, in the second year.

The joint venture has to commit to drill in the third year or surrender the lease.

Explorers regard Kaheru as one of the most exciting prospects near infrastructure in the Taranaki Basin. It is immediately adjacent to Origin Energy�s Rimu-Kauri and shallow Manutahi fields.

Kaheru sits on a proven thrust belt play fairway and has mean prospective resources of 350 billion cubic feet of gas and 10 million barrels of associated condensate. Oil and/or gas-condensate may be trapped at several reservoir levels, though a Miocene-aged target is the primary structure.

The PEP 52181 partners are operator Roc Oil (50%), TAG Oil (20%), L&M Energy (15%) and Mosaic Oil (15%).
L&M Energy is now code LME on the ASX bytheway not LMP