Rainbow Warrior en route to Taranaki oil and gas rigs

Climate Justice Taranaki has added a member of their team to the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior crew this week as they head around Taranaki to take a closer look at the oil and gas rigs offshore. Emily Bailey is joined by two Taranaki kuia: Agnes Wharehoka from Parihaka and Kura Niwa from Pukerangiora Hapū.

CJT member Emily Bailey says: “This is a great opportunity for us to join forces to send a clear message to environmental vandals out there that oil and gas drilling is not wanted any more in Taranaki. Given the global epidemic of forest fires, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, landslides and other extreme weather events, there is no question any longer that climate change has started and the only way to prevent catastrophic climate change is to leave remaining fossil fuel reserves in the ground.”

There are half a dozen installations offshore from Taranaki, actively drilling and producing oil and gas for a multitude of multinational companies. With Shell’s recent asset sell-off, Austrian-based OMV now owns the three largest producing oil and gas fields offshore – Maari, Pohokura and Maui.

“To add insult to injury, OMV has aggressive exploratory drilling plans across five other licensed areas in the Taranaki Basin while Malaysian-based Tamarind Resources plans to side-track drill from old wells in the Tui oil field. They are putting their heads in the sand, ignoring the escalating risks of mega storms on their aging infrastructure and the diminishing economic return as the world finally turns towards a low-carbon future. Meanwhile, onshore drilling, fracking and deepwell injection of wastes are also ramping up, notably with Todd Energy getting ready to drill 12 gas wells at the brand-new Mangahewa-G wellsite near Tikorangi. All these have got to stop if we are to have a liveable climate.” concluded Bailey.

The Rainbow Warrior is heading around the Taranaki Coast for a few days to tell the drilling companies that they are not welcome here and show the world what's really going on in Aotearoa.

© Scoop Media