Stewardship of the UK’s Oil & Gas Resources

Window of Opportunity

The Brownfield project also sought to establish whether the existing infrastructure would be decommissioned before the full reserves potential of the UKCS could be realised. To assess the Window of Opportunity, UKOOA created a reserves model in conjunction with DTI. Wood Mackenzie used the model to evaluate and map agreed scenarios. UKOOA will maintain and update the model as new information becomes available.

The study showed that in 2005 the majority of offshore infrastructure is already only partly full, as shown in the colour coding of infrastructure in figure 43. Critically, it was demonstrated that unless we maintain current activity levels, around 40% of infrastructure could be decommissioned by 2020. However, if the Brownfields initiative is successful and investor confidence is maintained, then decommissioning could be delayed by 10-15 years on many of the existing systems, dramatically improving the outlook for the future of the UKCS. Extending the life of infrastructure allows more reserves to be recovered from the existing fields and encourages the development new exploration activity. Once infrastructure is removed, nearby exploration potential becomes more expensive to develop, reducing ultimate recovery from the UKCS.

Figure 43: Current status of Oil and Gas infrastructure

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Figure 44: Projected rate of depletion of UKCS reserves

The study also looked at a range of scenarios to establish how much of the existing reserves base may ultimately be developed. Provided investment can be sustained and the UKCS remains competitive, then this study paints an optimistic picture. As expected, by 2015 85% of remaining recoverable reserves will be produced from existing fields currently in production, and these fields are projected effectively to be depleted by 2035. However, less than 10% of the remaining exploration opportunity will be produced by 2015, though this could rise to 60% or higher by 2035.