{"id":8721,"date":"2018-10-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westwoodenergy.com\/government-and-regulators-need-to-be-more-realistic-about-uk-oil-gas-potential-westwood\/"},"modified":"2022-09-07T02:52:53","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T01:52:53","slug":"government-and-regulators-need-to-be-more-realistic-about-uk-oil-gas-potential-westwood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westwoodenergy.com\/news\/government-and-regulators-need-to-be-more-realistic-about-uk-oil-gas-potential-westwood","title":{"rendered":"Government and regulators need to be \u201cmore realistic\u201d about UK oil & gas potential – Westwood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Aberdeen, UK)<\/em><\/strong> \u2013 Tuesday, 9th<\/sup> October 2018 \u2013 <\/strong>Governments and regulators need to be more realistic about expectations for UK oil & gas exploration, say experts at research company, <\/strong>Westwood Global Energy Group<\/a> (Westwood).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Westwood has published a new 10-year analysis of the <\/strong>UK\u2019s Offshore Exploration Performance (2008 – 2017). \u00a0The report reveals that oil and gas exploration saw a significant dip in 2012 -2013 before the oil price crash, when only 10 mmboe was discovered per year. \u00a0It has since bounced back with volumes discovered increasing to 180 mmboe in 2017, and potentially a similar volume in 2018.<\/p>\n

Whilst this still falls short of the Oil & Gas Authority\u2019s (OGA) 200 mmboe a year target, it demonstrates that reasonable volumes can be found during times when capital discipline has required only the best prospects to be drilled.<\/p>\n

\u201cTaking into consideration all of the trends over the last decade, our view is that 200 million boe will be very challenging to achieve and maintain year-on-year,\u201d says <\/strong>David Moseley<\/a>, Reports Manager for North West Europe, at Westwood Global Energy Group.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cOur analysis shows that over the last decade, t<\/strong>he UK replaced only 22 per cent of oil and gas production through exploration, finding 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of commercial resources. We also found that the industry tended to over-estimate prospective discovery sizes, with discoveries being only 50 per cent of pre-drill estimates since 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe lower finding costs in 2017 are a step in the right direction, but what will be important going forwards is rigorous prospect definition and the discipline to drill fewer but better wells – simply drilling more wells is not the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Westwood\u2019s report goes on to say that:<\/strong><\/p>\n