24 Nov 2013

Another beach protest opposing ocean oil drilling

10:07 pm on 24 November 2013

There has been another protest against deep sea oil drilling, this time at Christchurch's New Brighton beach.

It follows thousands turning out to rallies at beaches around the country on Saturday.

Around 50 protested at a Green Party event on Sunday to show opposition to drilling including an exploratory well the Texas company, Anadarko was due to begin off the coast of Raglan.

The company will carry out seismic testing off the Canterbury coast this summer.

Speaking at Sunday's protest, Green Party energy spokesperson, Gareth Hughes, said Maritime New Zealand was not prepared to deal with a large oil spill.

Mr Hughes said the agency was only prepared to deal with a 5500 tonne spill when history shows they could get up to 600,000 tonnes.

He said the deeper the well, the greater the risk is of a damaging oil spill.