North Sea oil production has fallen to its lowest level in more than 30 years, according to figures published yesterday.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) said UK oil output fell by 17.5% last year to levels not seen since the 70s.
The UK’s natural gas production also dropped dramatically, down 21% – meaning the country imported more gas than it produced for the first time since 1967 – but the amount of energy generated from renewable sources reached a record high.
Decc said the fall in oil production to just over 381million barrels was down to maintenance activity, a number of unexpected slowdowns and the decline in UK production.
Malcolm Webb, chief executive of industry body Oil & Gas UK, said decommissioning relief introduced in the Budget earlier this month would help operators but said he wanted the UK Government to continue encouraging investment in the North Sea.
“Nobody can be happy with this very worrying set of numbers and the industry and government must work together to ensure this is a one-off,” he said.
“Up to 24billion barrels of oil and gas remain to be extracted in the UK and it is imperative that we maximise recovery of those.”
Renewable power generation was up by more than 35% on 2010 however, and accounted for a record 9.5% of the UK’s total production.
Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said almost 40% of the UK’s renewables output came from north of the border. “We are seeing great progress towards our goal of generating the equivalent of 100% of Scotland’s electricity needs from renewables by 2020,” he said.
UK shadow energy minister Tom Greatrex welcomed the rise in renewables but pointed out it still made up only a small portion of the UK’s power.
“We need a balanced energy mix, which generates energy from many sources,” he said.
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