Anadarko drill ship on-site, one protest boat remains

The deep-sea oil drilling ship Noble Bob Douglas, owned by Texan oil company Anadarko, has arrived at the intended site of an exploration well in the Deepwater Taranaki prospect, with only one of six protest flotilla craft actively challenging the vessel.

The Oil-Free Seas Flotilla, comprising six yachts and including the SV Vega, a veteran of anti-nuclear protests in the 1980's, have been waiting since early in the week for the Noble Bob Douglas to arrive.

Facebook and Twitter postings from the flotilla show a stand-off developing between the Vega and the oil drilling ship, which is reported to be seeking the Vega's cooperation to leave the area by megaphone from its captain.

The protest is in part aimed at the government's hastily imposed 500 metre exclusion zone around oil infrastructure operating in the Exclusive Economic Zone, between 12 nautical miles and 200 kilometres offshore, as well as opposition to deep-sea oil exploration.

Anadarko spokesman Alan Seay told BusinessDesk that all of the protest fleet other than the Vega had moved to "a safe distance" away from the Noble Bob Douglas.

The head of Greenpeace in New Zealand, Bunny McDiarmid, and former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons, are aboard the Vega.

There was no police or naval presence in the area, Seay said.

"Our concern is being able to conduct our programme in safety," he said. "If we thing that's being threatened, we would have to look to our options."

Asked whether Anadarko would automatically trigger a complaint if a vessel remained within the 500 metre zone, Seay said: "It would depend on the circumstances. It's something we will be watching."

The Noble Bob Douglas is scheduled to drill a single exploration well at the Taranaki site and proceed to another site off the Canterbury coast to drill another exploratory well over the summer, before heading to other drilling contracts in the Gulf of Mexico.

Anadarko has become a focus for protest because the company was an investor in the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, which exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, causing loss of life and an environmental catastrophe that is still being cleaned up.

(BusinessDesk)