Pohokura permit operator Shell Todd Oil Services recently confirmed industry rumours that the Ocean Bounty, which is presently drilling the Casino-1 well for Santos and Strike Oil, is to drill the Pohokura North-1 well in licence PEP 38459 from late September-early October.

There is an option in the contract which will permit the rig to also be used on the more southern Maari field, in PEP 38413, if the Maari partners approve an appraisal well of that marginal discovery.

The aim of the Pohokura North well is to ascertain the northern extent of the 1tcf-plus gas-condensate field and to further evaluate the geological and petrophysical properties in this region of the field.

STOS acts as Pohokura and Maari operator and is about to start the Pohokura South-01 well from an onshore site near the Methanex Motunui complex to test the southern limit of the field for the Pohokura partners - Shell New Zealand, Todd Energy and Germany's Preussag Energie.

A Maari appraisal well may be one of the last things done by STOS before the Maari partners - Shell and Todd and Austria's OMV Petroleum - have to decide whether to proceed with commercial development of the marginal discovery or to relinquish the permit, the second term of which expires next January.

In early 2000, then Shell NZ petroleum manager Martin Trachsel Shell believed an economic development of approximately 40 million barrels was possible, even at low oil prices, based on production from the Maari prospect alone, and not from the nearby Pike prospect, also within PEP38413. However, more recently Shell has been wanting to exit Maari as the field does not meet Royal Dutch Shell's strict international criteria of 15-18% return on capital, 3% year-on-year production growth and 3% reductions in operating costs.

There are also industry rumours that major Conoco, which has committed to drill in PEP 38602 by next April, is going to pick up the Ocean Bounty after the Pohokura/Maari programs for its second well off Northland.