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Petroleum and geothermal exploration come together at EAGE New Zealand Workshop
The European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAGE) New Zealand Workshop, held in Auckland on 1–2 September, brought together geoscientists, engineers and energy professionals from across petroleum, geothermal and emerging subsurface energy sectors.
Day 1 focused largely on New Zealand’s petroleum sector, including our sedimentary basins, recent exploration and drilling, seismic technologies and the future of upstream exploration.
Day 2 shifted strongly towards geothermal and the wider energy transition. It opened with two geothermal keynotes, followed by presentations on magnetotelluric exploration in the Taupō Volcanic Zone and the relationship between magmatic intrusions and geothermal systems. Discussions then moved to natural hydrogen, repurposing petroleum wells and subsurface data for geoheat development in Taranaki, and new airborne electromagnetic techniques for imaging complex subsurface environments.
The afternoon broadened the conversation further into subsurface innovation, carbon capture, utilisation & storage (CCUS) and energy transition, including machine-learning approaches to reservoir characterisation, hydrogen storage, redevelopment of depleted gas fields and future exploration concepts. The overall effect was a really interesting mix of conventional geothermal, emerging geo-energy technologies and lessons from petroleum exploration.
NZGA Taranaki Ambassador Evelien Wallace delivered one of the Day 2 keynotes on behalf of NZGA, “Leveraging Petroleum Legacy to Advance Geothermal: International Lessons for New Zealand.”
The presentation explored the substantial overlap between the two industries. Petroleum and geothermal draw on many of the same skills and technologies – from geology, geophysics and reservoir characterisation through to drilling, modelling, production management and sustainable resource development.
International examples also show petroleum capability being applied in several different ways: enabling next-generation geothermal technologies, using legacy petroleum datasets to identify heat resources, redeploying existing wells for geoheat, and co-producing heat from operating petroleum fields.
For New Zealand, this creates opportunities not only for conventional and next-generation geothermal, but also for developing lower-temperature geoheat in mature petroleum basins such as Taranaki, where extensive subsurface datasets, wells and infrastructure already exist.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the workshop was the value of having the two industries in the same room. There were some excellent cross-disciplinary conversations across the two days, highlighting how much knowledge, technology and experience can be shared.
