Greymouth to enter retail gas and power markets

Greymouth Petroleum to enter retail gas and electricity markets

by Pattrick Smellie

Dec. 2 (BusinessWire) - Unlisted oil and gas developer Greymouth Petroleum is to enter the retail market for electricity and gas supply, starting in Auckland early next year.

The company disclosed today that its onshore Taranaki Kowhai oil and gasfield was judged to contain 134 Petajoules of gas and 3.2 million barrels of commercially recovereable condensate. Greymouth took control of the Kowhai discovery last year from by the US-based Swift Energy when it quit its New Zealand assets.

To support its new retail initiative, Greymouth is building a 3 Megawatt embedded generation, gas-fired power station in Papakura, South Auckland, and would be rolling out low-cost gas and electricity packages "in the Auckland area" in the new year, spokeswoman Lara Walker said.

"It will be quite a targeted, boutique roll-out," she said. "Whether we have flash marketing campaigns and flash bills with designer logos: probably not. We are just about price really."

The company was still working on residential pricing plans, and had been surprised to discover gas network charges from Vector for residential connections were up to three times higher than for commercial and industrial connections.

"We will be asking the Gas Industry Company and the government why this is."

The retail rollout would be under the Greymouth brand.

Meanwhile, Greymouth reports that its newly commissioned Tiger drilling rig has been placed in service in a multi-well exploration and development drilling campaign in Taranaki, and is currently drilling the Waimanu-1 well in PEP 38773, which is adjacent to the Kowhai prospect.

(BusinessWire) 17:21:08

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