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A letter from Business and Energy Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng to the oil and gas industry.
Oil and Gas Authority changes name to North Sea Transition Authority and will remain focused on essential security of supply and stewarding the energy transition.
Norway is now UK’s primary gas supplier and declining North Sea output means UK faces importing 80% of its gas and oil within a decade, warns OEUK report
Over the last five decades our industry has produced 4 billion tonnes of oil and 3 trillion cubic metres of natural gas from UK waters,
6 North Sea oil and gas fields are expected to be approved this year, as cabinet figures push back against “insane” demands to go further on net zero.
Tim Eggar, the Chairman of the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) gave the following speech at the combined PROSPEX and PETEX conference in London on 24 November 2021.
A newly acquired 3D Seismic survey, covering the entire Zechstein play fairway in the UK Mid North Sea High, reveals the hydrocarbon potential of the complex and highly variable Intra – Zechstein plays on the flanks of the European Permian basin. ION GEO discuss more in their latest seismic foldout with Geo Expro
Following re-interpretation of the new 3D seismic data acquired over the prospect, Deltic estimates that the Pensacola Prospect contains gross P50 Prospective Resources of 309 BCF (with a P90-P10 range of 39 BCF to 1,181 BCF) which will rank Pensacola as one of the highest impact exploration targets to be drilled in the gas basin in recent years. Significantly, the Shell/Deltic JV’s (“the JV”) new interpretation of the 3D seismic data has also resulted in a much-improved view of the geological chance of success associated with the prospect which has increased materially from 20% to 55%.
This year marks the beginning of a recovery after a disappointing 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic caused sanctioning of offshore projects to dip to $44 billion from $99 billion the year before. Rystad Energy projects offshore sanctioning to rebound to at least $56 billion in 2021 and keep rising to as high as $131 billion in 2023.
Operators are now even more focused on costs and profit margins, and majors are expected to concentrate their individual activity to fewer countries than before. This means the world’s resource-rich countries will have to compete more than ever to attract investments.
Rystad Energy has analyzed how each country’s fiscal regime affects the profitability and breakeven price of developing offshore mega-projects across the world. This has resulted in a top five list of countries for profitable large-scale field developments, seen from the operators’ perspective.
Although the Southern North Sea for many people is a synonym for the gas basin, one of the first exploration wells drilled in the area encountered oil in Zechstein carbonates: 48/22-1 Blythe, drilled by Burmah Oil in 1966. Good shows were observed in the Hauptdolomit interval and the interval tested 2000 barrels/day.