There are oil seeps in New Zealand and there is harvesting of oil along the techtonic fault.

That does not necessarily mean oil seeps and drilling are the same thing. Oil seeps are very passive movement while drilling is completely disruptive.

Oil and gas naturally rise towards the earth’s surface wherever there is a way up. If fault lines, fissures or cracks allow, petroleum emerges on the ground as sticky, oily deposits known as seeps. Early oil exploration in New Zealand focused on drilling in the vicinity of these seeps. However, it did not always follow that there was oil directly below, as the oil and gas might have taken a winding path.

Passive evacuation of oil from a tectonic fault which occurs in Taranaki, will only react to pressure provided from the fault itself.  However, introducing a drill to such a fault and then adding water and/or chemicals in the process of drilling begins to melt the rock that stabilizes the fault and will cause instability. 

Moturoa field, Taranaki (click here)

Seepages (places where oil seeps out of the ground) were the first sites that oil drillers targeted in New Zealand. Known seepages occur on the New Plymouth foreshore, Kōtuku on the West Coast, and Waitangi, north of Gisborne. At New Plymouth, bubbles of gas were seen along the coast, and on calm days an oily sheen could be seen on the sea water. In early 1865, gunsmith Edward M. Smith collected samples of oil he found among boulders at Ngāmotu Beach, on the New Plymouth foreshore. He sent them to Britain for analysis. Following this, the Taranaki provincial government offered £400 for the discovery of a commercial find of petroleum.

The current fields offshore from New Plymouth are a somewhat reasonable distance from the fault. However, over time there will be subsidence of the land in the area. That subsidence brings with it the potential to cause greater instability in the area of the fault.

The map below is since the Texas oil man George W. Bush was President of the USA. There are identified areas of exclusive economic zone which includes the area of the tectonic plates involved. 

This map also shows extended continental shelf. That means the mainland of New Zealand is a part of that continental shelf including the fault zone. If there is undersea subsidence that does not exempt the mainland of New Zealand from earthquakes.

These earthquakes have been completely disruptive to New Zealand. This is not something that can nor should be dismissed.

An undated photograph of the Godley Head lighthouse made available to NBC News on July 5, 2013

By David R. Arnott
NBC News

A helicopter rescue (click here) to save an historic lighthouse balanced precariously on the edge of a cliff will soon be under way in New Zealand.

The Godley Head lighthouse near Christchurch was first lit in April 1865. After two earthquakes in 2011, the structure was left clinging to the cliffs over Mechanics Bay. 

TV New Zealand reports that rescuers plan to rappel down the cliff face to remove the lighthouse's copper dome and lantern housing, which will then be lifted by helicopter to another site.

The stone building that housed the lighthouse keepers and their families until the lighthouse was automated in 1976 will be left behind.

This will only prove to get worse with additional drilling by the petroleum industry. How can any legislator provide leases to this industry with a clear conscience when New Zealand continues to experience instability that imperils it's citizens already.

With the capacity of horizontal drilling and the drilling that already exists in New Zealand, the opportunity to provide instability to that tectonic fault by this industry is still not yet known.