Cosgrove Clayton: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 10 June 2003. Volume:609;Page:6061. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
11.  
CLAYTON COSGROVE (NZ Labour—Waimakariri) 
 to the  
Associate Minister of Energy 
: What bids has he received for the Canterbury basin petroleum exploration blocks? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN (Associate Minister of Energy) 
: 
 The Government has received quality bids from four explorers in the latest permit bidding round. The area covered by those applications equates to approximately 18000 square kilometres of the 27000 square kilometres of offshore area up for tender. The bidders are drawn from New Zealand Australian and North American - based petroleum companies. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: What other opportunities are there for petroleum exploration this year for both international and local investors? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: I recently announced a bidding round over 17 blocks in offshore Taranaki north Taranaki and onshore in Taranaki. The offshore area is situated within the most promising exploration theatre in New Zealand for large oil and gas accumulations. Currently the deep-water Taranaki basin bidding round is also open for tender. 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Can the Minister confirm to the House that five licences were up for grabs in the Canterbury basin that he has received bids on only two of them and the reason that the onshore licences have not been bid on is that explorers find the minefield of the Resource Management Act is just too difficult to contemplate taking up those licences? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: Certainly the member has put an interesting twist on that. However I will say that the most promising areas have been bid for and we were not at all disappointed with that result. Secondly it is not the issue of the resource consents and so on that is the problem at all. It is simply the fact that New Zealand has a regime that is well understood by the oil industry and I think it is acting accordingly. We have a very promising future ahead and I am doing my very best to ensure that that happens. I would hope for some encouragement rather than discouragement from the member opposite. 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: Does he think that all this interest is because the Government has just allocated $21 million to oil and gas exploration by geological and nuclear sciences as a direct subsidy to the petroleum industry and why has the Government not provided at least the same sum to renewable energy industries so that wind solar and biomass can compete without penalty with fossil fuels? 
Hon HARRY DUYNHOVEN 
: First I would note the support from the Green Party and from Ms Fitzsimons herself for continuing gas and oil exploration. As she has rightly said it would be useful to have such finds as we move away from fossil fuels to renewable resources. But to answer the point made by her I point out that the Government has indeed a significant programme of encouraging renewable resources as well. I think that both of those things are possible to do at the same time. In the short term we certainly need gas.