Māui gas field closure will increase risk of energy shortage, regulator warns
Friday, 24 April 2026
The planned closure of the Māui gas field off Taranaki sharpens the risk of industry not having enough gas and increases threats to energy security, the gas industry’s quasi regulator is warning.
Austrian oil giant OMV said in its annual report that notice had been provided to the Government and regulators that the Māui gas field was “expected to cease production by the end of 2026”.
Its New Zealand subsidiary clarified in a statement that no final decisions had been made on the timing and such a notification was “a regulatory requirement for fields approaching their end”.
Production from Māui has been in decline and the Gas Industry Company — which works closely alongside the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment — said its “eventual closure” had been long signalled.
Read more:
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Methanex writes down Taranaki operation to zero amid NZ natural gas decline
But confirmation of “an end of 2026 timeframe” brought forward risks already identified for New Zealand’s gas and electricity systems, it said.
Canadian-owned methanol manufacturer Methanex has relied on gas from Māui and prior to OMV’s announcement there had been speculation it would also close next year.
The Gas Industry Company said OMV’s statement “raises immediate questions” for both Methanex and other large gas users.
“The potential loss of Methanex would mark another step in the ongoing de-industrialisation of gas-intensive manufacturing, alongside earlier and anticipated business closures,” it said.
Methanex, which is believed to employ about 170 staff at its factory, and the E tū union have been contacted for comment.
In a report the Gas Industry Company commissioned and published last month, consultant PwC assumed both Māui and Methanex would cease production next year and that imported LNG would not be ready by then, “creating a potential stress point for electricity security, and leading to the exit of industrial gas users”.
Gas Industry Company chief executive David Prentice said Māui’s closure “heightened concerns” about maintaining adequate dry-year cover for electricity generation from the winter of 2027 onwards “and the pace at which industrial gas demand is being forced out of the system”.
Methanex hasn’t confirmed plans to close its one remaining factory in Taranaki but has scaled back its local operation in recent years to reflect declining gas supply, and announced earlier in March that it had written down the book value of its remaining operations from $82m to zero.
Its future has been assumed to be tied to the production at Māui.
Commenting last month on whether it might mothball its remaining New Zealand plant, Methanex chief executive Rich Sumner told analysts on a conference call that the company was “watching things really, really closely”.
“We’re working with gas suppliers as well as the Government to sustain the operations, but it is a tough outlook right now,” he said then.