The 8402-tonne United Kingdom Sealion-operated vessel arrived at Port Taranaki from Singapore earlier this week and left early today after loading some of the steel piles for the Maari wellhead platform (WHP), plus other equipment.

The reeled flowlines, umbilical and mooring buoy for the FPSO, which arrived at the New Plymouth port earlier, are still there, waiting for the Toisa Proteus to take them out to the Maari field later.

The Maari WHP, being built in Malaysia, is about 75% complete, and is due to arrive in Taranaki waters next month.

Once the WHP is installed – and the jack-up Ensco Rig 107 has finished the three development wells for the more northern $NZ1.08 billion ($A942 million) Kupe gas project – drilling of the scheduled eight Maari wells, five production and three injection wells, is due to start.

Maari junior partner Horizon Oil estimates first oil to be about mid-August, based on the anticipated arrival of the Ensco 107 at the Maari wellsite in mid-June.

The Toisa Proteus is also scheduled to help install the flowlines and umbilical once the FPSO, which is over 89% complete, arrives in Taranaki waters.

Fitzroy Engineering Group’s 110-tonne mid-water arch is also at the port, waiting to be taken out to the site about 80km off the south Taranaki coast. The arch is needed to reduce stresses on flowlines as they rise from the WHP to Raroa about 1.5km away.

The New Plymouth-headquartered engineering group will also be involved in the installation, hook-up and commissioning of the WHP, and linking the development's subsea wellheads with the FPSO for the main Maari engineering contractor, Perth-based Clough.

The Maari partners are operator OMV (69%), Todd Energy (16%), Horizon Oil (10%) and Cue Energy Resources (5%).