Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Simeon Brown: Energy Minister on New Zealand's natural gas reserves reaching a two-decade low

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Simeon Brown: Energy Minister on New Zealand's natural gas reserves reaching a two-decade low · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: New Zealand gas reserves are now at their lowest level
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  Speaker 1: in twenty years that since record began. Speaking of records,
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  Speaker 1: NBC's reserves fell eleven and a half percent in the
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  Speaker 1: year to January, following a twenty seven percent drop the
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  Speaker 1: year before. Much of that blamed on lower estimates at
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  Speaker 1: the Pohu Kuda field. Reserves now sit at just seven
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  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty one pedigles. So I mean Brown is
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  Speaker 1: the Energy Minister with me live this morning? Hey minister,
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  Speaker 1: good morning, So how are the Why are the estimates
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  Speaker 1: coming down?
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  Speaker 2: There's a number of reasons we have. We have a
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  Speaker 2: range of fields which are coming to the end of
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  Speaker 2: their life and so for example, the Marui fields expected
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  Speaker 2: to close later this year. We haven't had major new
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  Speaker 2: fields been discovered for a long time in New Zealand,
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  Speaker 2: and of course we've had the ban on exploration since
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  Speaker 2: twenty eighteen to twenty twenty five, and that ultimately meant
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  Speaker 2: for that period of time we haven't had exploration as
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  Speaker 2: well looking for new gas and and that's led to
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  Speaker 2: the situation we're currently in which puts our electricity sector
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  Speaker 2: in our industrial sectors in increasingly difficult positions. In relation
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  Speaker 2: to security of supply of energy.
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  Speaker 1: Why are you putting these numbers out? I mean obviously
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  Speaker 1: to make people aware but also build the case for LERG.
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  Speaker 2: Well, these are released by MBED, so there's not released
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  Speaker 2: by me as the minister. There's a tier one statistics.
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  Speaker 1: I know that you put a press release out on them.
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  Speaker 1: I'm just asking if all right.
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  Speaker 2: In terms of absolutely, I mean this is about making
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  Speaker 2: the point that we need to reinvigorate not only our
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  Speaker 2: domestic oil and gas industry. It's critically important for our
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  Speaker 2: national security of supply of energy but also for industry,
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  Speaker 2: but also to point out if we don't find new gas,
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  Speaker 2: we will need to look at alternatives. And the alternative
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  Speaker 2: that we are currently going through a process of is
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  Speaker 2: to import our energy to make sure that we can
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  Speaker 2: have that security of supply for our electricity sector which
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  Speaker 2: relies on gas to keep the lights onbsolutely.
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  Speaker 1: So in terms of the band, now the band's been lifted,
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  Speaker 1: how I mean, how long do we get more prospecting
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  Speaker 1: for gas.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's work underway by the by the players, but
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  Speaker 2: ultimately they are also you know, working to find as
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  Speaker 2: much gas in their current fields as well, and so
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  Speaker 2: I think The report highlights that the last number of
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  Speaker 2: years has been around a billion dollars spent on you know,
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  Speaker 2: drilling and existing fields to extract as much as they
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  Speaker 2: can out of those fields. But as they get older,
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  Speaker 2: it gets harder.
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  Speaker 1: But in terms of gas, when will we realistically see
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  Speaker 1: a gas find new gas being added to this number
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  Speaker 1: rather than it continually going down.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it would take it would take a significant amount
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  Speaker 2: of of resource and investment. The governments put two undred
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  Speaker 2: million dollars to work alongside. We're putting putting taxpayers money
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  Speaker 2: investing alongside those looking for gas to support their efforts
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  Speaker 2: as well. But look, it takes a long time to
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  Speaker 2: bring a new gas field onto stream. Often you've got
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  Speaker 2: to you've got to find it, you've got to drill
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  Speaker 2: for it, You've then put the pipelines in place. That
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  Speaker 2: takes time. And that's why alng as a measure to
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  Speaker 2: import it into the country becomes critically important because we
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  Speaker 2: need to build a firm solar wind hydro. When we
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  Speaker 2: have a dry year, we need backup, backup fuel. The
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  Speaker 2: coal at the coal at Huntley provides about half of
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  Speaker 2: the backup fuel that's that's needed in a dry year,
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  Speaker 2: So we need to make sure we've got gas for
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  Speaker 2: the other half, and with declining fields totally LNG case
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  Speaker 2: becomes really important.
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  Speaker 1: Yours well, and you didn't say important, you just seed critical.
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  Speaker 1: So you can't not do along, now, can you, because
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  Speaker 1: you've said that it's critical. And if you turn around
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  Speaker 1: and don't do AL and G, then it looks like
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  Speaker 1: you're doing something non critical.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we're working through we're working through a procurement process,
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  Speaker 2: so there's still a number of steps that we need
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  Speaker 2: to make. But my point here is we need a
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  Speaker 2: solution which fixes this problem as quickly as we can.
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  Speaker 2: The alternatives such as you know, building a lake, a
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  Speaker 2: big pumped hydro lake storage at the bottom of South
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  Speaker 2: Island will take ten to fifteen years to build. Or
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  Speaker 2: we need to make sure we've got their security supplies
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  Speaker 2: quickly as we.
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  Speaker 1: Can, shuttering more mills and factories. Hey, very quickly on
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  Speaker 1: Air New Zealand because you stayed on enterprises. Any concerns
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  Speaker 1: there or business as usual. It's tough time, but they'll
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  Speaker 1: get through it and might need any government.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, look incredibly concerned. I'm not the shareholding minister particularly responsible.
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  Speaker 2: I think it's David Seymour Nichola Willis, but overall, as
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  Speaker 2: the Shareholding Minister, looking at our Saturn enterprises and mom companies,
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  Speaker 2: we want them to be performing well. Significantly concerned about
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  Speaker 2: Air New Zealand's performance. They are facing the consequences of
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  Speaker 2: high fuel prices, but they need to be focused on
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  Speaker 2: the basics, which is flying their planes on time, providing
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  Speaker 2: a good service and making sure that they can be
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  Speaker 2: as efficient as possible. That's our expectations of all of
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  Speaker 2: our Staturn enterprises.
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  Speaker 1: SimMan Brown, Energy Minister, appreciate your time this morning. For
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  Speaker 1: more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, Listen live to
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