Kea Petroleum extends New Zealand permit

Oil and gas company Kea Petroleum has extended the permit for the PEP 51155 in New Zealand.

The area covered by the permit was increased by about 9.0% to 286km2, allowing Kea to conduct exploration activities over the Hickman lead.

The company is planning to acquire about 58km of 2D seismic over the Hickman lead, identified as an Alliance Project.

Hickman is partially funded by Methanex under the pre-existing Alliance Agreement between Methanex and Kea.

"The Hickman lead is a large sub-thrust feature that lies between the current Kea Mauku 1 well currently being drilled on PEP 381204 to the North and the Mangahewa field to the South, which addresses a mean possible recoverable resource of 173bn cubic feet of gas and 6.0m barrels of condensate as per management's conservative estimates," the group said in a statement.

Shares fell 2.41% to 10.12p at 10:00 Wednesday.

RD