20 BILLION BARRELS OF OIL REMAIN
Report predicts industry has 20 years left.. if more investment is made now
TWENTY billion barrels of untapped oil could be capable of sustaining the UK offshore energy industry for two decades and beyond.
A UK Oil and Gas Authority report yesterday said “proven and probable” reserves of 5.7billion barrels could safeguard jobs for “20 years or more”.
But maximising the amount of recoverable oil from the North Sea and the rest of the UK Continental Shelf needs greater investment – and a higher oil price, the report claims.
The OGA report added: “The current best estimate of remaining recoverable hydrocarbon resources from the UKCS is in the range 10 to 20billion barrels.”
The call for more investment in an industry that has seen more than 200,000 jobs axed globally was echoed by offshore union leader Jake Molloy.
Molloy, Aberdeen-based regional offshore organiser of the RMT trade union, said: “The report, like so many others, paints a very optimistic picture and this is encouraging for the many thousands working across the sector.”
But he warned the report’s “critical” message was the need for investment to avoid “a rapid decline across the sector and early decommissioning, leaving a chunk of the remaining reserves untapped”.
He said: “If there is no investment in the sector then ‘maximising economic recovery’ is unattainable.”
The Aberdeen-based OGA’s current estimate of available resources range from 1.9billion to 9.2billion.