April 30, 2015 3:00pm by David Farrar

Greenies want to ban gas!

Protest group Oil Free Wellington says it is against granting a consent for the Maui gas field to keep running for another 35 years.

The group set up a mini oil rig and protest banners in the foyer of the Majestic Centre in Wellington where hearings into the gas field’s consent are being held.

“You can’t live on a dead planet with a dead ocean,” Oil Free Wellington said.

The consent for the Maui gas and condensate field is being considered by the Environmental Protection Authority.

The EPA had received 380 submissions opposing the marine consent, Oil Free Wellington said. Most were concerned about the risks to the marine environment and the need to rapidly move away from fossil fuels “if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change” the protest group said.

Actually natural gas produces only half the greenhouse gas emissions of coal.

The Maui joint venture partners contributed $550m in royalties, levies and tax to the government between 2008 and 2013 operator Shell Todd Oil Services says.

About 73 per cent of Maui gas goes toward meeting domestic requirements for energy.

That’s a big contribution towards our schools, hospitals and welfare system.

Of course the greenies who now say Maui must be decomissioned, were saying a decade ago that we had peak oil and gas, and Maui would be gone in two years. Here’s Powerless NZ in 2004:

When the question of oil and gas depletion is raised the flat earth fraternity often can’t help themselves laughing whilst pointing out ”but we’ve never produced more than we are today, the world is awash in oil and gas”. A sobering lesson is to be learnt by looking at the current depletion rates in the Maui natural gas field.

They claimed that those who don’t believe we are at peak oil and gas are flat earthers. In fact science has proven them to be the flat earthers.

Maui gas production is in free fall. In peak oil terminology we are over the cliff. Within a year, maybe two tops, Maui gas will be gone.

No if,s no buts Two years max. I hope the EPA considers their credibility in future.

NBR reported in 2012:

New-age drilling techniques are extending the life of New Zealand’s veteran Maui gasfield.

Shell Todd Oil Services has invested more than $100 million to extend the life of the 33-year-old field and says it should last at least three more years, and possibly 10.

But we were told it would be all gone by 2006 at the latest. How can it be still going in 2022?

Here’s the recent data for gas from Maui, the site that was meant to have ended in 2006: