Great South Basin facts for kids
The Great South Basin is a large area mostly covered by ocean. It is located south of New Zealand's South Island. This basin is a place where people have looked for oil and gas deep under the seabed.
Searching for Oil
People started looking for oil in the Great South Basin way back in the 1960s. Many companies, often from other countries, drilled wells to find oil. One of these was Hunt Oil. But by 1984, they all gave up because they didn't find any oil.
Later, new technologies made it easier to search for oil deep under the sea. These new tools included better ways to map the seabed and improved drilling equipment. This gave people new hope that oil might still be found there. Because of this, New Zealand started offering new chances for companies to drill for oil in the area after 2006.
Recent Exploration Efforts
In 2010, two big companies, ExxonMobil and Todd Energy, gave up their rights to explore in the basin. They said it was too difficult to drill there because of the tough ocean environment.
After that, Shell Oil Company bought a share in a project with another company called OMV. They announced they would start drilling in early 2014. However, in 2020, OMV stopped their drilling efforts. They plugged the well because they did not find any oil.
Another company, Anadarko Petroleum, also drilled a test well in the area in early 2014. They also did not find oil. Later that year, Schlumberger tried drilling in the same places, but also without success.
