It has been reported that an announcement has been made by the Government on a new $7.6 million programme to support oil and gas investigation around New Zealand.

Today, it was said by Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee that Crown Minerals had tapered GNS Science to provide a lot of projects centered on enhancing knowledge of New Zealand's petroleum potential.

Gerry Brownlee stated, "Providing better information about New Zealand's petroleum resources will increase the attractiveness of investing in exploration for local and foreign companies”.

It has been reported that the venture will use Google Earth to ascertain a pilot visualisation network, by which the territory of New Zealand is covered out to the recently expanded continental shelf limit.

It is said that Google Earth will be used to put on view data about offshore geological, geophysical and geographical statistics sets, making sure that the data is willingly and generously obtainable to potentially interested parties internationally.