Striking a Balance Index

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1. Economic sustainability Our Strategic Objective To enhance the UK offshore oil and gas industry's competitiveness in the global environment through its ability to attract continuing investment and thereby deliver long-term benefit (energy provision, employment and fiscal contribution) to the UK economy. We will achieve this by co-operating to realise operational efficiencies, by maximising mutual benefits within the supply chain, by stimulating development of new technology and by making best use of the existing infrastructure of platforms, pipelines and onshore plant. Context Figure 5 Total oil and gas production from UKCS Figure 6 UKCS oil and gas reserves Figure 7 Brent real oil price 1982-2000 Figure 8 Real gas prices - halved since mid 1980s The changing structure of the industry and the changing profile of exploration and production The industry is in transition from its early phase of finding and developing big North Sea fields and installing basic infrastructure, to a mature phase of maximising production from existing reserves, while developing smaller, more technically difficult fields making best use of that infrastructure. The waters of the Atlantic Margin (to the west of Shetland, the Orkney Islands and the Hebrides) present their own special challenges, located on the edge of the UK continental shelf where there is almost no existing infrastructure. Further context is provided in section 2, where issues such as fiscal contribution and employment profiles are discussed. Figure 9 UK North Sea expenditures