Australia and New Zealand Coal Seam Gas (CSG) explorer Comet Ridge Limited has announced the start of a new phase in New Zealand's first extensive airborne survey for CSG.

The company said the Airborne Gravity Gradiometry (AGG) survey commenced this week using a Cessna 208 Caravan aircraft from Perth-based Fugro Airborne Surveys Pty Limited.

The aircraft recently arrived in the country and, after certification and calibration of acquisition equipment, this week began the Waikato portion of the survey.

In all, Comet Ridge plans to conduct six weeks of survey flights, acquiring approximately 2500 km2 of aerial gravity data from the company's three CSG exploration blocks.

The data collection exercise is the second phase of an exploration programme which commenced in late 2009 when preliminary aerial surveys began.

Comet Ridge’s Managing Director, Tor McCaul, said the company was pleased to advance what is a significant project for both the company and New Zealand CSG exploration.

“We believe these airborne surveys are a first in New Zealand for specifically imaging coals for CSG exploration,” Mr McCaul said.

“Our permit areas are very extensive and these surveys are an extremely efficient way of defining the most substantive target areas for our drilling programme.

We are very excited about the potential for locating high-value CSG targets.

“Once the data acquired from the images is interpreted and integrated it is expected to provide our team with a number of high-value CSG targets across all three NZ permits in the Waikato and West Coast regions,” he said.

The company will then prioritise drilling targets based on the best combination of gas resource potential and proximity to infrastructure and markets. Drilling is currently planned to commence before the end of the 2011 calendar year.

Mr McCaul said although the survey was set down for six weeks, the final timeframe remained dependent on weather conditions and technical acquisition parameters.

Comet Ridge holds three blocks in NZ, two of which are very large, with a total area under license of approximately 8600 km2.

Tags: Comet Ridge