The National regime, with its outdated fossil thinking, is desperately trying to revive the fossil fuel industry. Meanwhile, that industry seems to be voting with its feet: one of my regular checks of the gas permit map, and comparison with the permit spreadsheet, shows that OMV has surrendered another two offshore exploration permits: 57075 and 60092. So of the nine offshore Taranaki exploration permits which existed when I started tracking this, seven have been surrendered, and only one is still active, and it expires in 2028.
(If you're wondering why I say nine offshore permits but the spreadsheet shows ten, its because the government was forced to grant another one under pre-ban rules by the courts in 2023).
The bad news is that National has converted Todd Energy's Karewa exploration permit off Kawhia into a mining permit. Which is weird, because the exploration permit had expired in July 2023, but NZPAM conveniently sat on an application to convert it for the last two years. Then, Todd Energy apparently applied again in May, and had it granted in just two weeks. Which seems... unusual. And only possible because of Labour's bad faith in banning new permits, but allowing existing ones to be extended and even converted, rather than guillotining the industry like it needed to do, which allowed the application to hang around until National had changed the law.
But on the plus side: Todd Energy's permit may simply end up as an accounting fiction, used to boost the nominal value of the company while the gas stays in the ground. Any possible development isn't going to happen until the end of the decade at the earliest, and there simply won't be a market for gas by then. And of course there'll be plenty of time between now and then for the next government to reimpose the offshore ban and legislatively revoke their permit. Which in itself ought to deter any development, because the risk of wasting a shit-ton of money is simply too great. The only question is how much this zombie industry is going to shamble around groaning before it finally realises it is dead.
