UK Gas Production Could Plunge 75% By 2030 With No New Investment
By Paul Homewood
From Oil Price.Com:
The UK could become much more vulnerable to price shocks and geopolitical events unless new offshore fields are approved and developed—and the UK’s gas production could plummet by 75 percent by 2030, the offshore energy industry body OGUK said on Thursday.
Without new investment in new gas fields in the North Sea, the UK will be left more vulnerable to crisis, such as the current one between Russia and Ukraine, the industry association noted.
Additional price shocks would add to the ongoing energy crisis in the UK where gas and power suppliers are going bust, while customers face a cost-of-living crisis when the energy market regulator Ofgem raises the price cap on energy bills as of April 1. The worst is yet to come for consumers in April, when millions of households would be thrown into energy poverty, with many people having to choose between eating and heating.
Domestic production currently meets 47 percent of the UK’s gas demand, 31 percent comes from pipeline imports from Europe, mostly from Norway, and 21 percent from LNG imports. In 2020, Russia supplied 3.4 percent of the UK’s gas, OGUK said.
According to the industry body, new fields are needed in the UK North Sea to stave off a predicted 75-percent plunge in domestic supplies if no new fields are approved. Many fields remain to be tapped, according to geological surveys. Such fields are estimated to contain oil and gas equivalent to 10-20 billion barrels of oil—enough to sustain production for 10-20 years, OGUK said.
“In the longer term, if UK gas production is allowed to fall as predicted, then our energy supplies will become ever more vulnerable to global events over which we have no control – as we now see happening with Russia’s threatened invasion of Ukraine,” OGUK Energy Policy Manager Will Webster said on Thursday.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/UK-Gas-Production-Could-Plunge-75-By-2030.html
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The present UK Government Energy policies are Suicidal for the rest of us.
$9.2 Trillion Per Year To Save The World. Mann made hockey sticks and Phi in the the Sky. The Green Delusion! $9.2Trillion Green Delusions.”There is a vast Inanition an enigma a conundrum”
https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2022/01/31/9-2-trillion-per-year-to-save-the-world-mann-made-hockey-sticks-and-phi-in-the-the-sky-the-green-delusion-9-2trillion-green-delusions/
Engdahl’s Hari Kari article is very much on point for this.
https://journal-neo.org/2022/01/12/why-do-nato-states-commit-energy-hara-kiri/
Post COvid Austerity as represented by the Hike in National Insurance and the Huge fall off in Economic Activity in the real Economy will cause many more deaths than the Vaccine. The effects of recessions in The west are actually much greater in developing nations, so the Herd Management selective cull in the Developed world is complemented with a more generalised population cull in the developing world particularly with respect to infant mortality.
Degrowth, recessions and Mortality. Emissions Austerity and Mortality. The Deflationary Carbon Based “Gold-standard”. [(((Carbon Credits(( “Just,(“” In Time””)”)))]
https://notthegrubstreetjournal.com/2022/01/30/degrowth-recessions-and-mortality-emissions-austerity-and-mortality-the-deflationary-carbon-based-gold-standard-carbon-credits-just-in-time/
The Green agenda, particularly the de-growth green agenda is a huge population control effort hiding behind the CO2 narratives
Health as an Occult euphemism for Mortality, and specifically population control and eugenics motivated “Herd Management”.
And all that for us – but NOT for China, Russia and India. Our – sorry, Carrie’s – government are stark raving mad!
Deal Boris,
SHALE
SHALE
SHALE
…and in case you missed it…
UK’s NATIVE SHALE GAS RESERVES.
Sorry ilma630 but Cuadrilla’s well test proved conclusively that we don’t have viable shale – its (like most shales) impermeable.
The Bowland Forest S of of the Lake District was their operating area.
There must be more elsewhere to evaluate .
Drilling and fracking a shale well requires a boat load of variables to line up to get affordable quantities of gas production. It took years to garner the data and make the changes to the recipe. A campaign of multiple wells and dozens of modifications to the chemicals, fracc size, etc over a year or two is required. It doesn’t make sense that only China and US can make fracking work. The barriers are far more likely that real industrialization will be prevented by active locals shouting NIMBY! Land holders must be adequately compensated and the government must step in with all kinds of spending to salve the wounds. My understanding of the Euro (and UK is in the same bucket) mentality is that folks are happier moving backwards towards an early agrarian society than will support the trucks and roads etc required. My condolences.
No! Cuadrilla were shut down before they had a chance to establish one way or another whether the Bowland Shale would produce adequately on Fracking.
It is not a given that every gas rich shale will produce eeconomical rates on fracking, and I would estimate that you need about 20 wells to evaluate the potential
You could have said all shales are impermeable, but when fracked we give them the permeability to enable the micro-porosity to produce.
Vernon, you really don’t know what you are talking about.
That’s why you frack. Gas always sits in and around impermeable rocks – otherwise it dissipates.
Alaister Grey: There are studies on the net based on Marcellus Shale that the minimum viable flow from one well is 600 MCFD. Cuadrilla’s business plan envisaged over 1 MMCFD. Their first (permissable) frack flowed less than 200 MCFD. When they fracked to five times the agreed limit the well flowed less than 300 MCFD. Do you really think that trying nineteen times more would have made a difference? I am all in favour of trying a different (UK) shale but with proper government support, financial and political, and realistic limitations. Let’s see this endless (and futile ) argument resolved one way or another.
Vernon, The oil industry, including franking, doesn’t need government support. It just needs government to get out of the way.
And arguing with Alastair Gray who knows what he’s talking about? Up your game mate.
“active locals shouting NIMBY!”
We will eventually frack the on land reserves, the question is how damaged will our economy be by the time HMG is forced to face up to the facts. It’s not locals shouting nimby, it’s trucked in professional protesters, just as it used to be with CND and the down with cruise crowd. I wonder where they get their funds from?
There’s a way out which involves a realistic approach to Net Zero, allowing the final decision to be put off for twenty years by using on-shore gas as a bridge to SMR nukes. It leaves room for manoeuvre, marching along the Net Zero road but not committing until climate science actually justifies the word ‘science’*.
See: http://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-sensible-speech-on-climate-the-pm-will-never-make/
JF
*If ever.
Read your speech. Very well done. Much to agree with, including the bribing of the NIMBY crowd. I take my earlier comment back.
‘The worst is yet to come for consumers in April, when millions of households would be thrown into energy poverty, with many people having to choose between eating and heating.’
I love a little melodrama with my coffee in the morning.
Note that offshore gas isn’t the only solution, though OGUK can’t be faulted for suggesting it.
On past evidence, even this information will not deter these miseducated History and Humanities graduates from their mission.
The Ends justify the Means, apparently.
These morons have not studied or learnt History. They are social and political studies graduates. A study of History reveals climate change has occured for 4.5billion years. History teaches it is not manmade.
Chris Skidmore MP, a true NET Zero believer, read Modern History, at Oxford, but I don’t think the fact that it is ‘Modern’ is the problem.
Here’s another chap who, at a guess, didn’t read any sort of History, at Oxford, yet knows EVERYTHING there is to know about heat pumps, and has a certain approach to them that I like:
The problem isn’t the subject. They have not been taught to question, think or analyse.
But, hasn’t the plan going forward always been to lower our CO2 emissions to zero as soon as possible…a small window to take urgent action? The green deal proponents and other eco-friends of the planet should be overjoyed. Where are they?
But they don’t care what is done with CO2 or any other intervention, BL: they just want continuous ‘revolution’; a continuous state of unrest and confusion. They just want to wreck the country.
That is true, they just don’t care: they are blinded by their agenda.
We have been under attack for at least two decades, probably more.
And the “as soon as possible” is to stop any prototyping, with all the advantages that it brings.
Just told my Tory MP to forget my vote next time out if Carrie’s government doesn’t drop NZC and bring back fracking.
Harry at least you are lucky enough to have a Tory MP to withhold your vote from. Down here in the sunny southeast (Canterbury) we have the world’s highest proportion of students to residents. As a result we have probably the most incompetent MP that even the Labour Party are trying to get rid of! I feel voting is the least of our options now.
Harry,
If I told my MP Desmond Swayne I was withholding my vote he wouldn’t care. He has a 24,000 majority in a seat with 71,000 voters and a 71% turnout….my only hope is to change his mind. At least he will listen to an argument and reply.
TS
You could suggest he hold a red-team/blue-team debate where he asks the questions.
I told the same to my constituency MP – a fellow by the name of Kwasi Kwarteng. Surprisingly despite the extremely abusive tone of my email, I got a reply. assuring me that all was well and not to worry my pretty little head
I wonder if Operation Stop Sturgeon has anything to do with this, Scottish independence may look less attractive to some without North Sea gas/oil revenue.
Na
Wee Jimmy Crankie is all out to destroy the Scottish Oil and Gas sector all on her own with a wee bit of help from her green pals
What gòd has or will the Green cr@p Partydone or do for us?
Our politicians must know the answers if any because most have turned green.
The current HMG policies will kill the UK oil & gas production. Once companies cannot develop their fields (think recent Shell Jackdaw) they will look to divest and put their money elsewhere – eg offshore Namibia is pretty hot currently (where I have been focusing my work) and where Shell has just drilled a key well Graff-1. Rumours are its a discovery – if true and its big enough, expect them to develop it. Plenty of welcoming fiscal terms from governments all over the world to develop there oil and gas to give their countries a boost. And plenty of non-woke developing countries who can’t get enough of the stuff as they try to improve the standard of living in their countries.
Once existing UK fields decline it is a very quick slide to infrastructure decay and then its all over as far as UK oil and gas is concerned.
The answer is blindingly obvious. Stop using gas to produce electricity. Switch the CCGT generators to dual fuel and use kerosene or diesel. For those who comment that its not that easy let me remind that the tertminology of “gas” turbine came from what drove the turbinbe as opposed to water. The machine came about through the aero engine developement and the natural fuel was, and always will be, kerosene (ATK – aviation turbo kerosene).
No go, Vernon. The push is for hydrogen to replace natural gas.
There are plans in Australia (Pt. Kembla, NSW) for a CCGT plant using 5% hydrogen (source not yet disclosed). Very recently the “Leader” of the Labor party has promised to raise this to 30% if elected.
That I understand will, due to the higher temperature, would be enough to melt the turbine blades.
Graeme No 3: I don’t think so. My understanding is that up to about twenty percent hydrogen could be accepted into the existing gas grid. Above that flame stability (Wobbe Index) becomes an issue. The pre-steam reformer town gas was around fifty percent hydrogen – I don’t think anything melted.
A while back someone posted on here about a report prepared for BEIS into the feasibility of blending hydrogen into the national gas grid. Iirc it highlighted a number of issues:
> Boilers can be adapted to burn hydrogen quite easily but, unless they are fitted with expensive sensors and controls, the high flame temperature will lead to the formation of more NOx than with natural gas. So the fitment of exhaust clean-up was the likely solution, needing regular maintenance and testing (like MOTs for cars).
> Ventilation requirements will change. Cooking hobs will produce a lot more water vapour. Houses will need “pathways” in ceilings and roof spaces to allow any leaking hydrogen to vent safely.
> Existing gas turbine power plants are not suited to hydrogen being blended into the gas feed because it changes the combustion characteristics. The report envisaged “de-blending” units on the feed to each station to remove hydrogen – what would be done with the hydrogen was not mentioned.
Apologies for not providing a link. I thought I had the report but can’t find it!
Vernon; when town gas was in use the burners in domestic appliances were designed for it – and no-one was worried about NOx. You may recall that the huge switchover to NSG involved changing out the burners in every house. I may be wrong but I don’t think we had any CCGTs running on town gas; if we did they would have been designed for it.
Mikehig: What a muddle. I would like to see something stronger about adding hydrogen into the grid (it would be a nightmare to avhieve the mixing anyway) but I have never remotely suggested trying to fuel gas turbine generators with any amount of mix of hydrogen. My mission is to convince you and others that they should be run on kerosene or similar as they were originally designed to do.
Vernon E: when you wrote about nothing melting with town gas, it followed Graeme No3’s comment about melting turbine blades, hence my reply.
You also said that about 20% hydrogen might be acceptable into the grid which, of course, feeds all the O/CCGTs…. Glad we got that clear eventually!
As for using kerosene, aiui some modifications would be needed to the turbines unless they are already dual-fuel, plus investment would be needed in storage, supply systems, etc.. In today’s travesty of a market I doubt any of the operators would want to take that on without direct government support.
Lastly I think I’m right in saying that the Wobbe Index is essentially a measure of calorific value, not flame stability.
The answer is (a) increase gas production worldwide and (b) power companies to switch back to long term contracts not spot market purchase. Both will happen because that’s how markets work, and the global demand for energy is too great even for loony Western governments to hold it back. Its like the government trying to hold us in the ERM back in the day – they could never do it, eventually the free market forced our exit and a return to sane interest rates.
Not quite the answer you may think it is. Kerosene is much the same price as gas. We would find it difficult to supply the volumes: you would be wanting to use pipelines or ships, not road tankers. There are not many power stations well sited for that. Gas usage for generation is of the order of 20 mtoe, In 2019 jet fuel consumption was about 12 million tonnes, much of it imported. We would have supply problems.
It doesn’t add up: not sure about that. ATK must be in surplus due to airlines shutting down as a result od Covid and diesel (just as good) is (supposedly) being phased out. The refiners only have limited options over what they produce. I agree that delivery and storage are an issue to be faced but the Irish seem to have got to grips with it in their duaf fuel obligation.
I am very sure. The UK has long been a substantial importer of diesel, and its kerosene production has been limited since Shellhaven and its hydrocracker shut permanently quite some years ago. Even in 2019 we produced just 5 million tonnes of jet fuel out of the 12 demand. We imported about 10 million tonnes of diesel last year.
Refineries rebalance production within limits: in fact, few refineries have the plant necessary to make additional kerosene other than by distillation, where typical yields are only about 2-5% on crude. Many were designed to increase gasoline production through upgrading heavier fractions (we export petrol), which comes at the expense of diesel production. That, plus the impact of dieselisation has left us short of diesel.
Check out the data from Energy Trends.
It doesn’t add up: Not sure what hydrocracking has to do with kerosene but I absolutely agree that the widespread closure of our refineries has meant that we are reliant on imports for most of our fuels. I just don’t like this total reliance on gas, especially when it is under the control of hostile regimes.
The main output of the hydrocracker was kerosene, pumped to Heathrow.
Great!Liquid hydrocarbons grow on trees – Like Hydrogen! Eh!
Possibly the saddest thing is that no matter how many lives are destroyed and however many trillions are spent in the UK achieving (or trying to achieve Net Zero) neither the climate nor the rest of the world will even notice.
The gas network is being quietly left to get into a state of dilapidation.
So it doesn’t matter whether new wells are drilled or fracked.
Agreed. This is the real risk. Much of the infrastructure is ageing and won’t be replaced
so has to be maintained. That’s only viable with a continual process of new gas being tied in. Once north Sea infrastructure declines its all over for UK production. The government is embarked on a wilful act of vandalism. Madness and from a Conservative government as well.
Exactly what happened to Rough.
These idiots are burning their boats so that we have no choice but to plough on to our economic doom.
You will recall the damascene conversion of Conservative politicians when gaining office from green scepticism to full support for the uncosted Net Zero policy. Simply it because they had no option; the policy was fixed – climate change act merely was waved through on sheer ignorance bar just several knowledgeable ones – and enforced by the increasing left and ‘woke’ civil service whose ruling philosophy is the ‘Common Purpose’ doctrine that brokes no opposition. We are powerless unless we have strong, intelligent, leaders to sweep aside the governmental mess.
Thinking scientist: And you do?
Yep
“active locals shouting NIMBY!”
We will eventually frack the on land reserves, the question is how damaged will our economy be by the time HMG is forced to face up to the facts. It’s not locals shouting nimby, it’s trucked in professional protesters, just as it used to be with CND and the down with cruise crowd. I wonder where they get their funds from?
There’s a way out which involves a realistic approach to Net Zero, allowing the final decision to be put off for twenty years by using on-shore gas as a bridge to SMR nukes. It leaves room for manoeuvre, marching along the Net Zero road but not committing until climate science actually justifies the word ‘science’*.
See: http://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-sensible-speech-on-climate-the-pm-will-never-make/
JF
*If ever.
“I wonder where they get their funds from?” Guess!
If you search on
The-sensible-speech-on-climate- the-pm-will-never-make/ TCW
you will find a way out of our dilemma. (My explanatory post has vanished. Que?)
JF
Not a problem. Alternative sources are supposed to provide 100% long before then.
Don’t you read the BBC?
Latest argument against new UK gas and oil development I saw was this: gas is an internationally traded commodity, therefore new gas UK supply will have no effect on price. The hack obviously hadn’t considered the full implications of this, namely, we’ll get our gas from somewhere, it’s international after all. consequently the impact on CO2 will effectively zero. In any case, it’s isn’t that simple. The SAGE pipeline for instance supplies UK users, it can’t just be diverted across Asia to supply China just because the price is higher.
It simply isn’t true that gas prices are all set in internationally traded markets. We were self-sufficient in gas (at least if you count in dedicated Norwegian pipeline supply that had no alternative outlet) for many years, and we had consistently cheaper prices in consequence. In fact, when we had a surplus just from our own production domestic wholesale prices were lower even than the US and Canada. Today, the US is self-sufficient and its gas prices in domestic wholesale markets are priced at a fraction of ours. Their prices haven’t risen just because the LNG trains are making a large fortune out of exports.
We are of course currently buying large quantities of US LNG, and we have been paying some fancy prices to bid it away from Asia and other European customers, and also for some expensive freight.
Thinking Scientist. Got a bee in your bonnet? With the insults you hurl you would be better off on Twitter than this normally respectful site. You can disagree with me but “knowing nothing is out of order. After nearly fifty years at the sharp end of the oil & gas industry, world wide, it would be somewhat bizarre for me to “know nothing”. .