New Zealand is sleepwalking into an energy crisis, and the Government’s proposed solution will cost every household and business in the country dearly for decades to come, warns the New Zealand Outdoors & Freedom Party (NZOFP).
For years, New Zealand relied on abundant, low-cost domestic natural gas to stabilise the electricity grid, support industry, and keep winter power prices under control. That era is ending far faster than most New Zealanders realise.
Domestic gas production has collapsed. In 2024, total gas supply fell to roughly 116 petajoules (PJ), down from around 180 PJ just years earlier. This year, in 2026, projections show supply plummeting to just 98 PJ. The Maui field, once the backbone of New Zealand’s entire energy system, is in terminal decline. MBIE’s own reserves data confirms that multiple major fields are forecast to wind down by the mid-2030s. This is a structural, irreversible depletion, not a temporary dip.
Gas is the backbone of winter electricity security, responsible for generating up to 55% of our electricity during peak times when hydro lakes are low and wind drops. Without it, the country faces systemic shortages. That is why the Government is now pursuing a billion-dollar LNG import terminal infrastructure project.
However, imported LNG is highly volatile. Recent Asian spot prices translate to roughly $29 per gigajoule (GJ) in New Zealand dollars. Domestic Maui gas, by contrast, has historically traded at around $8–$10 per GJ. Applying LNG pricing to the same volume of gas currently used for electricity generation causes the annual fuel bill to jump from approximately $500 million to $1.6 billion.
NZOFP Energy Spokesman Lester Bryant says: “It represents the same electricity output for triple the fuel cost, every single year. These costs will flow directly into wholesale electricity prices. The choice being handed to Kiwis is between much higher power prices or blackouts. Neither is acceptable.”
“What makes this worse is that the proposed terminal isn’t even sized to replace total domestic gas supply. It is an emergency stopgap masquerading as a strategy. A terminal large enough to fully replace domestic production would require billions more in capital investment, permanently locking in tripled electricity prices as a core feature of the New Zealand economy.”
Domestic gas remaining must be treated as a precious, irreplaceable resource, prioritized strictly for hospitals, universities, essential industrial processes, and critical infrastructure.
“The Government has been warned repeatedly by MBIE, the Gas Industry Group, and independent analysts that domestic supply is declining faster than forecast,” says Mr. Bryant. “Dressing up an expensive stopgap as a solution in an election year, while the bill lands on every household power invoice for the next 30 years, is a betrayal of New Zealand consumers. Kiwis deserve a frank, honest conversation about the real costs and trade-offs of our energy future.”
Image credit: Markus Kammermann
That’s strange- MZOG stated in one of their stockholder bulletins from 15 years ago that NZ had over 410 years of natural gas, and 420 years of oil in and around the country’s territorial land & waters!
Someone or some entity is lying…!
The other option is hydrogen gas extracted from various sources, held in -299F converters, and released for turbine burn at the power generation locations.
Aircraft, tractor-trailers and some car now run on hydrogen, so the technology is there for power generation!
https://www.nzhydrogen.org/nz-hydrogen-projects
“This will triple electricity fuel costs…”
As if that wasn’t the intended goal to begin with. Our governments all viscerally hate us. That’s why they tax and levy us into poverty, spy on our communications, poison our food and water, import foreign savages and house them next to kindys, etc etc etc.
If the govt loaned $7B to householders for solar panel installations holds it would put a 5kw solar system on 588,000 homes, it would produces the equivalent of 116 petajoules of energy (the amount of gas we are domestically producing per year) and as the money is paid back, it could be lent out again for more installations.
But this would undermine the pricing of the energy sector and force prices down so the National parties lobbyist would not be happy, it would also be bad for GDP as less money would change hands but why wait for a govt loan, get one yourself and stick it to the man, the money you will save on power bills will help to offset the loan repayments and the panels will pay for themselves in 7 years.
zippy, “If the govt” wasn’t a consecutive charade of corporate corrupted shills, your reasoning would bear fruit.
Alas, as long as the uni-party, kingmade since decades by Winston Peters, is in power, nothing will change.
Actually, that’s not correct.
It will only get worse.
I agree, the govt needs more generating capacity, they would have gone to the energy sector and told they of their net zero commitments and the need for more generation, the energy sector would have then asked for a guarantee of demand to protect their investment. that guarantee of demand would have included an memorandum of understanding that the govt would not mandate or fund any solar capacity at a consumer level.
This announcement of a new energy infrastructure project is IMO designed to deflect from the insanely close breakdown of national diesel supply.
What happens at the moment is that govt. and fuel supply companies fanatically try to avoid empty tanks, literally. They ship small supply vessels from terminal to terminal in order to avoid to call phase 4 of the national emergency plan. There will be no phase 2 or 3 called, because that would mean instant panic buying, because the public would become aware, how precarious the diesel situation is.
Look at any online fuel clock and be fooled by MBIE data slop.
The hailed but empty Marsden Point facility will be filled by 2 govt. commissioned stealth vessels and will NEVER be used for commercial supply, but for emergency situations (police, med. and security…whose you can guess). South Island diesel needs are ‘juggled’ with coastal vessels, siphoning off diesel from the North just to avoid total depletion and unrest. Vessels carrying other non-diesel fuels are used to obfuscate stock. Deadhead/slack (un-usable sump in the tanks) is counted as reserves. MSO is regionally breached. Distribution is now at a stage where even the inter-island ferries are maxed out transporting truck tankers in order to patch ‘dry’ cities (upper SI). The ferries increased the surcharge for commercial vehicles over 50%.
Even when the levee holds, prices for diesel will likely reach ~ $4+ for months to come, even if Hormuz/Bab-el-Mandeb would be opened today.
And all that because corporate lobby corrupted subsequent govts for their profit, wrecking our Marsden Point refinery. Treasury, OIO, and MBIE have a lot to answer for.
You shall all have compulsory corporate-charging plugs surgically attached into your anuses connected to your implanted corporate-arsenic oxide battery and you shall all line up as a cowering bleating flock with your mandated face-diapers on every monday morning at the corporate LNG factories to receive your allocated weekly power dosage. Your compulsory corporate electrical household equipment will operate by you inserting your finger into it’s allocated cavity. Disobedience will not be tolerated. Thank you. Carry on… Next…
We have abundant gas reserves, our companies just stop investing in locating and producing them when the govt made it too risky/hard.
Abandon the net zero idiocy and let them get back to doing their jobs is all that’s needed.
The NZ Outdoors and Freedom Party didn’t offer a solution, but to have a conversation. Well how about New Zealand gets over its irrational fear of nuclear power to fix the problem.
Nuclear powered Small Modular Reactors will fix the problem but the New Zealand public will need a lot of reeducation first to eliminate their inherent NIMBY syndrome when it comes to nuclear energy.
Well, that’s a very interesting question.
And I agree.
Where does the NZOFP stand on that? I think you hit the the nail on the head with many -xcuse the pun- airheads quite likely stuck in outdated, never comprehended, axioms about nuclear energy. Modern technology has developed a LOT during the last decade. Will there be reason to be had or will unicorns be derailing constructive discourse?
Why would we want the risk of a nuclear accident when there are other renewable, clean ways to produce enough energy?
Do you want a nuclear power plant in your suburb?
Honestly now, would you be happy with a NPP in your area?
When does the NIMBY effect take hold for you? I’m not really happy putting any part of NZ at risk with our geological history of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions
zaggy, u might wanna to spruce up on technology
BTW: what’s also ‘historic’, zaggy, is combined public and private debt of …wait for it…$1 trillion, i.e. 1000 billion, i.e. one million million, i.e. 1.000.000.000.000 dollars that not you, but your children’s children have to pay back to the international financial bankster cabal.
Heard of compound interest?
The ‘energy’ (and in the end everything is energy) govt borrows to see your backside alright is 1.8 BILLION a MONTH!
Feel warm now?
Nuclear power is a narrative that was inserted into our conversation by the energy sector, the shareholders all live overseas and would not be at risk of any ‘event’.
The Sun is a nuclear energy source that is up and running and only needs harnessing with panels on your roof so stop all this silly talk about being grown up an d living next door to nuclear and get a loan from your bank and put a 5kw system on your roof and use the power bill savings to pay the loan of, they system will pay for itself in 5-7 years.
In the 1215 Magna Carta, King John gave the Catholic Church (Holy Roman Empire) the rights and authority to free elections, introduced feudal law and the sublease of large estates (world) by the military orders of the Roman Catholic Church (Hospitallers, Templars, Knights of Malta, Jesuits). The rights and authority granted for free elections to the Church evolved into Westminster Parliament/House of Lords, which means that Parliaments belong to the Church and that Parliaments throughout the world today derive from the Church. The laws that come from these Parliaments are really only for members of the Church who are partaking in the lease and occupation as legal owners/trustees of the land through their military orders. The Colony of New South Wales/New Zealand Company government (divisions of the same company) is a military church order, has a lease and claims to be the legal owner. We are merely on the land in allegiance to the legal owner, which is the Corporation of Great Britain who determines the law that we are to function under, which is Admiralty/Maritime law as opposed to Common Law. The legal owners deem us to be under the legal statutes of the Colony of New South Wales/New Zealand Company of the United Kingdom of Great Britain.
Jordan Maxwell who has now passed gave outstanding symposiums on this situation.
Here’s a few examples-
https://rumble.com/v41qetn-jordan-maxwell-admiralty-law-and-the-difference-between-liberty-and-freedom.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhQTb_iVuiI
https://odysee.com/@Qwinten:b/Occult—Esoteric-Business-Laws—Jordan-Maxwell:f
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoX-1OMJ1d4
1. “The Magna Carta gave the Holy Roman Empire authority over elections”
The Magna Carta did not grant governing authority to the Holy Roman Empire. It primarily addressed the relationship between King John, the English barons, and the English Church.
The “free elections” clause referred to church elections (such as choosing bishops), not parliamentary elections.
2. “Parliament belongs to the Church”
There is no historical basis for the claim that the Parliament of the United Kingdom belongs to the Church.
Parliament evolved from medieval councils of nobles, clergy, and advisers summoned by English monarchs. While clergy were historically represented, Parliament developed into a secular legislative institution accountable under constitutional law, not as property of the Church.
The presence of bishops in the House of Lords does not make Parliament owned by the Church.
I smell a rat. The NZ govt say they want to phase out LPG for “clean” energy. Nek minit the wells are dry.