New Zealand's oil and gas industry is concentrated in Taranaki, and the choice of an explosion proof mobile phone there is shaped by a mature basin, a small number of operators and sites that range from offshore platforms to a fuel import terminal in Northland. This page is for the HSE, engineering and telecoms teams of those operators and their contractors, and it describes what the IS-04Z1 is designed for as it approaches its Q4 2026 launch. The IS-04Z1 is designed around intrinsic safety rather than a flameproof enclosure.
Launching Q4 2026 · IECEx programme in progress
The upstream business is a handful of operators sharing one basin. OMV operates the Māui gas field off South Taranaki with its onshore production station at Oaonui, the Pohokura field with its production station at Motunui, and the Maari oil field 80 kilometres offshore; see our page on an explosion proof phone for OMV New Zealand. Todd Energy runs the Kapuni, McKee and Mangahewa fields onshore, covered on the Todd Energy page. Genesis Energy is a gas-field operator through Kupe. Downstream, Methanex's Motunui methanol plant has been the basin's largest gas customer, but it announced on 1 September 2026 that it will idle in the first quarter of 2027; read the Methanex page for the effect. Beyond Taranaki, Channel Infrastructure runs the fuel import terminal at Marsden Point, with two deep-water jetties, 280 million litres of tankage and a 170-kilometre pipeline to Wiri in South Auckland, according to its own description.
Taranaki's fields are past their peak, and production decisions are driven by supply, price and regulation. For a handset, that means working in a business that is careful with money and exacting about safety.
Platforms such as Māui and Maari are reached by helicopter or vessel from Taranaki, so weight and battery life are considered before the first valve. The 4,000 mAh cell is specified to cover a shift without a recharge point in the area.
OMV operates Pohokura remotely from New Plymouth, so a visit to site is for a defined task. A call, a photograph and a position fix back to the control room are what the visit needs, and the handset provides all three.
Gas, condensate and crude vapours are generally group IIA. Ex ib IIC T4 is the design target, which covers IIA to IIC on a single marking, so one handset serves every operator's sites.
Inspectors and service crews work for several companies in the same basin. A managed handset can be enrolled and wiped per job, so that each operator keeps control of its own policy.
Well interventions and maintenance campaigns put several companies on one deck or pad. Enrolled handsets carry permits and photographs, and a camera policy can be applied by role.
Operators at Oaonui, Motunui, Kapuni and McKee Mangahewa walk through separation, dehydration and compression in Zone 1 and Zone 2 areas, logging readings as they go.
At storage terminals the work is inspection, transfer and loading. Location and a time-stamped photograph show that a tank, bund or hose was actually checked.
We do not have relationships with any operator named on this page and cannot describe their approval processes. Each runs its own, so ask each operator's procurement and HSE teams what a supplier of equipment for classified areas must provide.
OMV, Todd Energy and Genesis Energy upstream, Methanex downstream and Channel Infrastructure in fuel import. Each has its own approval route, and none has been approached on our behalf.
It changes the business more than the rating. The same Zone 1 requirement applies whether a field is ramping up or being run down, though project budgets are tighter.
The design target is Zone 1 and Zone 21 for both, but each operator classifies areas separately and decides what may be carried.
No list price exists. Pre-launch quotes are written for a stated quantity and configuration once the zone, gas group and volume are known.
Tell us the site, the zone and gas group, and roughly how many handsets. The SAMS team replies by email with the datasheet and the certification schedule for New Zealand. The IS-04Z1 is pre-launch and certification is in progress, so there is no list price yet; indicative pricing is issued in writing against a stated quantity and site.
Tell us the zone, gas group and operator. We will send the datasheet and the certification schedule for your market.
