No evidence of oil finds in the 1950s

Sir, – I am responding to Angus Jacobsen’s challenge (Getting it Right on Discovery of Oil, January 5) to update your P&J “275 Years as Your Voice” supplement article entitled “1969 North Sea Oil Discovered” that stated the first UK North Sea oil discovery was made in 1969, and to correct his suggestion that oil had been discovered in 1953 by providing the details and timelines for exploration success in the North Sea.

Until the Continental Shelf Act, setting out the rules for offshore licensing, was passed by Parliament in 1964, no exploration wells targeting oil and gas had been drilled offshore. The only discoveries that predate this time had been made onshore, most notably in the English East Midlands and in the Midland Valley of Scotland, where the Cousland and D’Arcy (Midlothian) Fields were in production.

The first well drilled in UK-licensed offshore acreage was Amoseas’ 38/29-1, spudded in the Dogger Bank area of the Southern North Sea on December 26 1964 and subsequently plugged and abandoned as an unsuccessful “dry hole”, since it contained a waterbearing reservoir.

Exploration success did not occur offshore until the fourth exploration well, BP’s 48/6-1, discovered gas in what was to become the West Sole field in 1965.

The first oil discoveries were only made after exploration moved north into deeper waters of the Central North Sea with the Anne (1966), Roar, Tyra (1968), and Arne (1969) discoveries in Danish waters and the Valhall (1967), Cod (1968) and the giant Ekofisk field (1969) in Norwegian acreage. The first oil to be discovered in the UK sector came even later when Amoco, BP, Shell, and Hamilton discovered the Montrose, Forties, Auk and Argyll fields in 1970-71.

There is no evidence for oil having been discovered in the North Sea during the 1950s.

John Underhill. university director for energy transition, University of Aberdeen.