Interactive Map

Oil spill model

for NZ

Under the National Government between 2009 and 2017, drilling rights in the deep ocean surrounding New Zealand were sold off to big oil companies including Petrobras, Anadarko, Shell, Statoil and OMV. The Texan oil company Anadarko drilled a deep sea exploratory well off the coast of Raglan and then another off the coast of Dunedin risking catastrophic oil spills.

Exploratory drilling is the most dangerous part of oil production and adding the challenges of drilling in very deep water compounds the risks. Greenpeace NZ modelled what could happen in the event of a spill at both sites.

Following a long and hard-fought campaign against deep sea oil drilling, the Ardern Government put an end to oil exploration in April 2018 putting NZ's vast EEZ off limits to oil exploration. This leaves only a small number of existing permits at risk from exploratory drilling.

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