Activity Survey 2015

The complexity of the UKCS has grown dramatically over the last 50 years. Figure 28, showing oil production by field, illustrates that dynamic. In the UKCS’ early years, production was dominated by a small number of large fields. Now, in 2015, production is made up of hundreds of fields, typically much smaller in size. There is far greater inter-dependency between these fields and there is a need to consider joint developments or subsea tieback solutions as smaller fields often mean standalone development is not commercially attractive. This does make UKCS production vulnerable to a ‘knock-on effect’ if important pieces of infrastructure are shut-in, particularly if that shut-in is unplanned. The Production Efficiency Task Force, set up as part of the government-industry forum PILOT, is working to ensure that operators co-ordinate planned shutdowns so that they are carried out as efficiently as possible.

1

2

3

Figure 28: Production by Oil Field since 1975

4

1,000

900

800

5

700

600

6

500

400

300

7

Oil Production (Million Barrels)

200

100

8

0

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

Source: DECC

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