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Biography: Chris Rhodes. www.fresh-lands.com Professor
Chris Rhodes is a writer, speaker and researcher who became involved with
environmental issues while working in Russia during the aftermath...
North Sea Oil and Gas may Provide One Third of Britain's Energy by 2020.
3 Mar, 2010 10:11 pm
The North Sea could still be providing one third of Britain's energy by 2020, but only if there is serious investment made and soon.
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Ofgen chief executive, Alistair Buchanan has said, "For the next two to three years, with gas supplies and power station availability we are in a powerful position. The problem is the speed at which it deteriorates." The lobby group, Oil and Gas UK, thinks that a lack of investment during the past four years has been a main reason for falling gas and oil production levels. 2009 saw a decline in the number of wells drilled by 22% for development and 40% for exploration.
Another 11 billion barrels of oil and gas has been reckoned in both new and existing operations, which increases the total offshore reserves for the UK to around 25 billion barrels worth. That said, many of the newly identified deposits are located in the central North Sea or to the west of Scotland, and will require deep-water drilling which is expensive.
It is thought that with sufficient investment, UK offshore oil and gas fields could still be producing 1.5 million bpd by 2020, which would meet 35% of the country's total demand for energy. Otherwise, keeping the lights on may prove a challenge since 40% of our electricity is made in gas-fired power stations. Necessarily rising imports of oil for fuel remain a problem in their own right, however, and I predict a steep fall in the number of cars on Britain's roads by 2020 or well before then.
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Agreed, in terms of providing electricity for other purposes, there is a strong case to build such offshore installations, although there are problems with putting turbines in such locations, especially in the tempestuous North Sea.