4 | Major player committed to region Sue Russell to page 6 Taranaki: Beach Energy REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Brian Baker Instrumentation Services Limited is a local Taranaki contractor specialising in: General Instrumentation, Electrical and Electronic Installation and Maintenance | Fiscal Metering Services Instrumentation and Electrical Planning Services | Project Management | Hazardous Area Electrical Inspections Plant Shutdown and Start Up Maintenance | Plant Commissioning | Control Valve Servicing 0800 865 799 | www.bbisl.co.nz Beach Energy NZ Country Manager, Mat Quinn, and General Manager Operations, along with Vicki Meijer share a huge commitment to bring real value to the Taranaki region, in which the company operates. Mat has been with the oil and gas production company since 2018. “I joined Origin Energy in Australia in 2005, so when it decided to divest its upstream operations enabling Beach Energy to acquire the Taranaki basin assets, that was the perfect time for me to move home” Mat says. Vicki has been with Beach since they acquired the assets, having joined Origin in 2010. In Taranaki, those assets include the Kupe Production Station, Kupe Well Head Platform, and the Kupe Omata Tank Farm in New Plymouth. New developments are afoot, as Beach Energy works through the numerous environmental, regulator, and consultative processes, to bring to fruition the second stage of extending its natural gas reserves; a development always intended when Origin secured Petroleum Mining Licence (PML 38146). The licence consists of three production wells up to 3.8 kilometres in depth as well as the Kupe platform, covering an area extending some 115,000 square kilometres, all of which is offshore within the Taranaki Basin. “When the original field development was conceived it was envisaged that half-way through the 25-30 year life of the project further capacity in the form of additional well(s) would be needed. The licence catered for this potential.” The Kupe wellhead is 30km offshore; an unmanned facility from where natural gas drawn from below the seabed is sent ashore to the Kupe Production Station for processing. Kupe is a significant player in New Zealand’s energy infrastructure, supplying at peak about 15 percent of New Zealand’s annual natural gas demand and 50 percent of this country’s LPG demand. Kupe also produces condensate (a light oil) for export into the global market. Before any wells are drilled another project, the installation of a $72 million electrically driven centrifugal inlet compressor at KPS was needed to effectively lower the pressure of the field. The compressor was successfully brought online in 2021 and has run reliably since being started.
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