THE North Sea has attracted increased interest from oil and gas exploration firms following the oil price rally since late 2016 the results of the latest UK licensing round have shown.
The Oil and Gas Authority said the 31st round generated a strong and diverse set of applications from 35 companies ranging from multinationals to microbusinesses.
The regulator said the encouraging response demonstrated that interest had increased since the 29th round held in 2016, with an almost 50 per cent increase in the number of blocks applied for.
The round suggested there is strong interest in so-called frontier areas in which there has been relatively little exploration activity, including East of Shetland and the Atlantic Margin off Western Scotland.
The exploration success enjoyed by firms such as Hurricane Energy West of Shetland in recent years has encouraged firms to look beyond areas closer to the UK mainland, on which drilling has concentrated over the years.
The results of a recent study by the OGA indicated there may be around 15 billion barrels of oil equivalent still to be found in the UK North Sea, largely in frontier areas.
However exploration drilling fell to a record low in UK waters after the plunge in the crude price from 2014 to early 2016, amid strong international competition for capital.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel