The oil and gas industry group Pepanz, claims that right before government's ban on new offshore permits was introduced interest in oil and gas had begun to recover meaning that New Zealand potentially missed out on billions of lost revenue.
The Labour led government announced in early April all new oil and gas exploration offshore would be banned in a bid to protect New Zealand from the effects of climate change.
But it's claimed that documents released under the Official Information Act show the government's petroleum and minerals team was receiving more interest from oil explorers at the end of 2017 than it had seen since at least 2012 - when the block offer process was brought in.
Cameron Madgwick is the chief executive of Pepanz.
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