Waitangi Hill

Waitangi Hill Aerial View: the Waipawa and Whangai source rocks responsible for the Waitangi oil discoveries underlie the entire region in this photograph.

Conventional Shallow Oil Development & Unconventional Target
The Waitangi Hill prospect, located in the Company's northern East Coast permit area, has the potential to return early cash flow from a shallow oil development. It also provides an opportunity to collect the first modern data on the underlying world-class source rocks, and their viability as an unconventional fractured oil-shale opportunity.

The area known as Waitangi Hill is home to a number of historical wells drilled and "dug" between 1885 and 1931. According to old records and well data, almost all of the eight wells on Waitangi Hill reported oil and gas in one form or another and production rates of up to 50 barrels of oil per day.

Of particular interest is the remaining Waitangi-1 wellbore, drilled in 1912, which still produces high-quality, sweet crude oil to surface. Gas is also bubbling up with the crude, indicating the oil zone discovered nearly one hundred years ago is still producing hydrocarbons today. Reports also indicate that "numerous oil and gas zones were encountered while drilling" and "oil was produced from shallow zones at 650 and 1350 feet". Other reports indicate that this oil is potentially producing directly from the Whangai Shale source-rock.

What's Next?
Trans-Orient plans to drill the Waitangi-3 well very near the location of Waitangi-1 to test the shallow producing oil zones. Also of great importance, the well will continue deeper to collect vital core information on the underlying Waipawa Black Shale and Whangai Shale source rocks.