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ECONOMIC REPORT 2015
60
Drive to Improve Production Efficiency
Over the last couple of years, production from existing
assets has benefited from an industry drive to improve
production efficiency, which rose from 60 per cent in
2012 to 65 per cent in 2014. It is estimated that this
contributed to an additional 70 million boe since 2012.
As Figure 46 shows, the rapid increase in both unplanned
plant losses and planned shutdowns contributed the
most to the preceding decline in production efficiency.
Unplanned plant losses have recently begun to fall,
but still remain the largest cause of lost production,
with compression issues being the biggest underlying
contributory factor. Planned shutdowns have increased
in the last few years as operators seek to improve asset
reliability in the long term so that the plants are less
prone to unplanned outages.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
Percentage of Production Potential (%)
Planned Plant Losses
Export Losses
Reservoir Losses
Wellwork Losses
Planned Shutdown Losses
Unplanned Plant Losses
Actual Production
Source: DECC
Figure 46: Production Potential