Reuters today:
"Western oil companies' output has fallen in recent years and oil producing countries now prefer to award their richest fields to their own national oil companies."
I mean Australia are onto it. They started with keeping Shell's involvement in WPL down. Yet NZ back Exxon. Well I suppose Exxon is the NZ super funds largest investment....but that is not the same as developing NZ for NZers.
It seems crazy to me that NZ explorers' are not required to be in on the ground floor with the most prospective territory. The rest of the world has gone that way. The "tender processes" used favours the big guys but there must be a way of structuring the tender so that more investigative work is conducted by NZ in conjunction with Crown Minerals and then get the NZ companies to farm out once the costs become astronomic. There must be a way of the little guys learning and growing bigger in their own patch.
Buy Kiwi I say to the government/Crown Minerals. Perhaps two tier tendering where foreign company dollars only count as 30pc of NZ company dollars in evaluating mineral tendering rounds. That way the resource tender's would have to be channelled through NZ companies. Does this sound way out?
And to NZO the most profitable field development in the world must be Tui - why would you risk off shore when so much is still to be done on your doorstep? So it takes time - we can wait for the right opportunities at home. NZO has some capital now, it needs to be preserved. NZO needs to be preserved and not sold to the highest bidder as Fletcher Challenge Energy disappeared just as they were becoming useful. When it comes to capital purchases NZ'ers have never (in my lifetime) competed because our cost of capital is kept at astronomic levels. Tilt the playing field back towards our companies I say.