Tamarind administrators eyeing Tui drilling restart

Administrators of Tamarind’s New Zealand subsidiary have revealed they would be looking to continue the Tui drilling campaign in the Taranaki Basin.

Tamarind said on Tuesday that it’s New Zealand subsidiary Tamarind Taranaki went into voluntary administration due to an “unsustainable financial position.”

Jason Kardachi and Mitchell Mansfield of Borrelli Walsh were appointed as the administrators of the company.

The administrators told Offshore Energy Today via email that the board of directors of Tamarind Taranaki made the decision to appoint the voluntary administrators due to unsustainable debt levels which have accrued for several reasons.

“These reasons include but are not limited to weaker oil price environment, the failure of the drilling campaign to access the additional ~4.5mbbls of oil remaining in the Tui field and other commercial factors.

“The purpose of the administration will be to reach an outcome which offers the best return for creditors, which we believe certainly includes a continuation and extension of the operations currently active on the field,” the administrators stated.

To remind, New Zealand’s Scoop Business website reported in September that  Tamarind had drilled a duster at the first of three planned development wells at the Tui oil field in the Taranaki Basin. The news website at the time cited the company’s CEO who said the result was unexpected, but that the other two wells were worth testing.

However, Scoop also reported that Tamarind – which acquired full Tui ownership in 2017 – had put its drilling plans to a halt as the company had not been able to reach an agreement with the drilling contract COSL for the second and the third well planned to be drilled with semi-submersible drilling rig used for the drilling of the first well – the COSL Prospector.

The administrators from Borrelli Walsh have also told Offshore Energy Today that they are assessing the potential to access new capital to continue the Tui drilling campaign on the Amokura and Pateke sidetrack wells.

“Further work has been undertaken by the company since the failure of the initial drilling campaign on these remaining two wells, and all indications are they are entirely viable and represent a solid independent investment with a very high probability of being successful.”

The Tui area oil project constitutes three fields, Tui, Amokura, and Pateke, which started production on July 30, 2007, and produce from four horizontal wells flowing to the FPSO Umuroa. The oil is processed on the Umuroa before being exported via export tankers destined for refineries on Australia’s eastern seaboard. The FPSO has a storage capacity of 700,000 barrels of stabilized crude oil.

Tamarind in October terminated a contract for the BW Offshore-owned FPSO Umuroa, operating at its Tui field in New Zealand.

The vessel owner said it would seek to recover all outstanding hire from Tamarind Resources and its parent company under the provisions of the existing contracts.

Offshore Energy Today Staff

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