Business
Oil And Gas
Reserves Fall Estimates of UK natural resources
Reserves of oil were
estimated to total up to 3.1 billion tonnes at the
end of 2002, but of these only 0.6 billion tonnes
were proven.
The total includes an estimate of between 0.3 and
1.8 billion tonnes of oil reserves which have yet
to be discovered, but which may exist in areas of
the UK continental shelf.
Only a small proportion of the
estimated remaining recoverable reserves of oil and
gas is known with any degree of certainty. Estimates
of the life expectancy of remaining UK oil reserves
are therefore uncertain, but they do show an overall
decline between 1994 and 2002 (as would be expected
given the extraction of reserves over the period).
Estimates of gas reserves totalled
up to 2.7 billion cubic metres at the end of 2002,
of which only 0.6 billion cubic metres were proven
reserves. The life expectancy of gas reserves also
shows an overall decline over the period, down to
approximately 12 years at current rates of extraction
by the end of 2002.
Oil reserves include both oil
and the liquids and liquefied products obtained from
gas fields, gas-condensate fields and from the associated
gas in oil fields. Gas reserves are the quantity of
gas expected to be available for sale from dry gas
fields, gas-condensate fields and oil fields with
associated gas. Gas which is expected to be flared
or used offshore is not included.
