Global managing general partner Randall Thompson said Hyundai Hysco, South Korea's third-largest steel producing company, was a large industrial company with a major continuing need for fuel to fire its steel furnaces.
Hyundai Hysco is to earn its stake by paying a proportion of the cost of acquiring about 3100km of new 2D seismic due to be shot later this year as part of the second stage of the permit's work program obligations.
The company is already involved in one other oil and gas exploration venture in Kazakhstan and two or three minerals operations in West Africa and Mexico.
Thompson told PetroleumNews.net from Denver this morning that Global was still looking to farm-out a similar stake to another major company.
Given the large quantities of hydrocarbons that could be found in the permit, this opened up the possibility of liquefied natural gas exports, to markets such as South Korea, if gas was found.
The New Zealand Government's Crown Minerals unit awarded PEP 38451 in August 2006. Global's work program included a commitment, within 42 months, to drill a wildcat exploration well.
Today, Thompson said Global had met all the first stage work program obligations, including British firm Nigel Press Associates conducting a satellite oil-seep detection survey over the licence and GNS Science incorporating all available data into a single integrated interpretation of the basin.
The GNS review revealed several significant structures - each named after a breed of sheep - that could each hold up a billion barrels or more of oil.
These included the Cretaceous-aged Romney, with an areal closure of 200sq.km that could be charged with 1.1-1.65 billion barrels of oil, plus 1.7-2.7 trillion cubic feet of gas; nearby Coopworth, with an areal closure of 130sq.km and potential charge of 350-540 million barrels of oil, plus 0.6-1.0Tcf of gas; and Corriedale, with a 64sq.km areal closure that could contain 180-280MMbbl of oil and negligible gas.
Global and Hyundai would now work together on more associated geotechnical studies, Thompson said.
Crown Mineral's acting group manager, Michael Anastasiadis, said this was the first time a South Korean company had entered New Zealand's upstream petroleum sector and the move had captured the attention of the South Korean Government, which had recently shown specific interest in involving South Korean companies in New Zealand resource exploration.
