Rystad: UK North Sea Oil Output Will Never Again Surpass Two Million Barrels a Day
The recent downgrade of Hurricane Energy's Lancaster field recoverable reserves estimates has led Norwegian energy intelligence Rystad Energy to revise its expectations for the UKCS overall and say that the basin might never again hit output levels of more than 2 million barrels of oil equivalent a day.
Rystad has said that oil and gas output in the United Kingdom’s continental shelf (UKCS) has declined steadily since its peak at 4.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in 1999, "never exceeding 2 million boepd after 2010."
However, promising exploration results by Hurricane Energy in fractured basement reservoirs, previously untapped in the UK, were until earlier this year expected to revive the country’s output to 2.1 million boepd by 2035, according to Rystad Energy’s estimates. Now, Rystad says, those hopes have been dashed.
To remind, a technical committee recently examined possible geological and reservoir models for the Lancaster field and found that estimated recoverable reserves, assuming no remedial action, have been reduced from 37.3 million barrels to 16 million, of which 6.6 million have already been produced.
