UK contains 20 years of reserves

Report places remaining recoverable reserves and resources at up to 20 billion boe.

The UK still has remaining levels of reserves which could sustain production for at least the next 20 years, according to a new report from the UK Oil & Gas Authority (OGA).

The OGA’s UK Oil and Gas: Reserves and Resources report on Thursday placed the estimated proven and probable reserves on the UK continental shelf at the end of 2017 at 5.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

It noted that in 2017, 400 million boe of proven and probable reserves were added, while 600 million boe was produced, resulting in a reserve replacement ratio of 69%.

According to the OGA, the UK’s contingent resource level also has a central estimate of 7.5 billion boe, the majority of which lies in mature areas.

It also noted that exploration success last year delivered an additional 181 million boe in contingent resources.

“OGA’s current estimate of remaining recoverable hydrocarbon reserves and resources from UKCS’s producing fields, undeveloped discoveries and mapped leads and prospects is in the range 10 [billion] to 20 billion boe plus,” OGA operations director Gunther Newcombe said.

“Extended field life, due to lower operating costs and higher oil price, additional producing field incremental projects, actively worked undeveloped discoveries, and a robust prospect and lead inventory, supplemented by a significant upside potential derived from statistical play fairway analysis, are all key factors in making the UKCS a world class petroleum province.”

According to the OGA’s statistical play analysis, the UKCS contains an estimated additional mean prospective resource of 11.2 billion boe in plays outside of already mapped leads and prospects, with the proportion of gas being greater than 60%.

The full UK Oil and Gas Reserves and Resources report can be found here: http://online.fliphtml5.com/laus/pxqz/

Source: https://www.upstreamonline.com