Oil & Gas UK Economic Report 2015

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ECONOMIC REPORT 2015 43
This section reviews the UKCS’ commercial health.
Using data gathered in June 2015, it provides an
updated review of recent performance and assesses
potential trends for the basin over the next two to
three years, building on the findings of the Oil & Gas UK
Activity Survey14 published in February 2015.
7.1 Reserves/Resource Potential
DECChas historically published annual details of reserves
and resources. This will now be the responsibility of
the new regulator, the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA).
Oil & Gas UK has compared the latest figures against
information available from its own surveys of operator
companies and the following provides a summary of the
UKCS’ resource potential based on current trends.
Over 43 billion barrels of oil and gas have been produced
on the UKCS over the last five decades. Future resource
recovery will depend on prospectivity, technology
improvements, commodity prices, operational costs
and efficiencies, and the integrity and longevity of
infrastructure, combined with energy, fiscal and
regulatory policies.
Oil and gas reserves and resources are reported under
a range of classifications with low, mid and high cases15.
Figure 28 summarises the figures from DECC as at
31 December 2014.
Proven, probable and possible reserves of 11.9 billion
boe are reported. It should be noted that this is a
somewhat higher figure than the ten billion boe of
sanctioned, probable and possible reserves reported
by Oil & Gas UK in its 2015 Activity Survey, which
focuses only on potential reserve development within
operators’ existing business plans.
DECC estimates that the UKCS offers potential
additional resources (PARs) ranging between 1.5-7.3
billion boe. The PARs represent discoveries without
plans for development that are not currently technically
or commercially viable. A wide range of uncertainty
is reflected in these estimates and, from year to year,
projects are seen to move between the PARs and the
reserves categories.
Category
(Billion boe)
Proven Proven and
Probable (2P)
Proven, Probable
and Possible (3P)
Reserves 4.2 8.1 11.9
Low Mid High
Potential
Additional
Resources (PARs)
1.5 3.7 7.3
Low Mid High
Yet-To-Find (YTF)
(based on central
case)
2 6 9
Source: DECC
Figure 28: Reserves and Resources as Reported at 31 December 2014
7. Performance Indicators
14 Oil & Gas UK’s Activity Survey 2015 is available to download at
15 See
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