Austrian oil company, OMV, is trying to slink out of cleaning up its aging Maari oil field by selling it off. The buyer is a small, unknown oil company called Jadestone Energy, with limited financial and technical capability.
But the Energy Minister can stop the sale and require OMV to clean up its mess. And the decision is sitting on her desk right now.
Sign the open letter calling on Energy Minister Megan Woods to stop the sale, the transfer of interest and change of operatorship from OMV to Jadestone.
OMV have made billions off extracting oil from the Taranaki seafloor. Now they should take responsibility for cleaning up and decommissioning the site - instead of palming off the field onto a small company that can’t be relied on to safely operate and decommission the site properly.
Why is this important?
This isn’t the first time this kind of deal has happened. The Tui oil field off the coast of Taranaki was recently sold to a small company called Tamarind, which almost immediately went bankrupt. The outcome? A rusty old tanker full of oil was left tethered to undersea well heads of dodgy integrity - risking an environmental disaster - while the Government had to front up $155 million or more of public money to decommission the site.
As the Tamarind fiasco shows, oil companies are all too often happy to pocket the profits while leaving the risks with the New Zealand public and Aotearoa environment when things go wrong.
Let’s call on Minister Woods to stop such irresponsible behaviour, decline OMV’s Maari sales proposal and ensure that OMV is held responsible for cleaning up the mess it has created.
Please sign on to the letter now.
