Oil & Gas UK Economic Report 2014

Figure 6: Cumulative Reserves Discovered and Produced

60

Recoverable Reserves Discovered Reserves Produced

50

40

30

(Billion boe)

20

10

Cumulative Reserves Discovered and Produced

0

1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010

Source: Wood Mackenzie

Almost 43 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) have been recovered over the past 46 years – 28 billion boe of oil and 15 billion boe of gas. In that time, the UKCS has changed from being dominated by a small number of very large fields in the 1970s and 1980s to a highly diverse oil and gas province of some 300 producing fields in the southern, central and northern North Sea, the Irish Sea and, more recently, west of Shetland. Regarding the future recoverable potential from the UKCS, DECC has numbers as low as 4.5 billion boe for fields in production or under development through to 34.5 billion when considering the fullest exploration potential. Taking into account the range of possibilities for undiscovered and potential additional resources (PARs 4 ), together with discovered reserves, DECC’s current best forecast of the remaining recoverable oil and gas is between 11 and 21 billion boe. Oil & Gas UK believes the remaining recoverable reserves are still Future Opportunity

from 15-24 billion boe, but acknowledges that the recent lack of exploration success and slow rate of bringing discovered resources through to maturity as recoverable reserves demonstrate how difficult it will be to reach the upper end of these ranges. Even if no further capital investment is sanctioned, Oil & Gas UK expects a further 6.6 billion boe to be produced, around two thirds from the 300 fields currently in production and one third from new fields under development. In addition, companies are considering investments to produce a further 2-5.5 billion boe of reserves. New developments account for 1-3 billion boe of this, with a further 1-2.5 billion boe due to potential, incremental investment in existing fields. This takes the remaining recoverable reserves of the UKCS to 8.5-12 billion boe, representing resources for which there is a significant degree of certainty of recovery.

4 Potential additional resources (PARs) are those associated with existing fields, as distinct from undiscovered or yet-to-find (YTF) resources.

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ECONOMIC REPORT 2014