New Zealand Oil & Gas won't be taking a stake in an offshore Taranaki field after existing permit holders exercised their rights to increase their holdings.
Earlier this month the listed energy explorer had reached a conditional agreement to acquire 6.7% of the field from Global Resource Holdings and Randall C Thompson.
But other permit partners, Anadarko and Hyundai Hisco, have first rights to the stakes, which they snapped up.
New Zealand Oil & Gas chief executive Andrew Knight says it is quite normal for this to happen in these sorts of contracts.
"For us we had put a transaction out there, they had a right to pre-empt. They obviously still see great potential in offshore Taranaki, they liked the terms that we'd negotiated so they took their right and pre-empted it."
