Publications

Survey of Energy Resources 2007

Natural Gas Country Notes

The UK is no longer Europe's leading offshore gas producer, having been overtaken by Norway in 2006. The data on gas resources and reserves adopted for the present Survey are based on those reported by the British Energy Association, the UK Member Committee of the WEC, on the basis of advice from the Department of Trade and Industry.

Proved recoverable reserves at end-2005 are reported to be 481 bcm, being the sum of 'gas from dry gas fields' (191 bcm), 'gas from condensate fields' (186) and 'associated gas from oil fields' (104). In this context the DTI defines 'proven reserves' as those 'which on the available evidence are virtually certain to be technically and economically producible, i.e. have a better than 90% chance of being produced'.

'Probable' reserves (with a better than 50% chance of being technically and economically producible) are put at 247 bcm, whilst 'possible' reserves (with a significant, but less than 50%, chance) are estimated as 278 bcm.

It may be noted that Cedigaz quotes UK proved reserves of natural gas as 728 bcm, i.e. the sum of 'proved' and 'probable' reserves in DTI parlance, whereas most of the other standard published sources report them as 531 bcm, reflecting DTI proved reserves as at end-2004, being the latest available at the time of their compilation.

Potential additional reserves exist in discoveries for which there are no current plans for development and which are currently not technically or commercially producible. The DTI states that, on the basis of information gathered during the first quarter of 2006, these reserves are considered to lie within a range of 68 to 282 bcm, with a central estimate of 141 bcm. In the course of time, as additional data become available and development plans evolve, some of the 'potential additional reserves' gas is likely to be transferred to 'reserves'.

The DTI has also produced estimates of 'undiscovered recoverable resources', based for the most part on an analysis of mapped leads. The latest update has produced a range of undiscovered gas resources from 226 to 1 035 bcm, with a central estimate of 421 bcm. It is pointed out by the DTI that such figures provide only a broad indication of the ultimate remaining potential and that the central estimate is not necessarily the volume most likely to be discovered. The figures quoted do not include any estimates of unconventional gas resources such as coal-bed methane.

It should be noted that all UK gas reserves are reported in terms of recoverable quantities: the corresponding volumes of gas in place do not form part of the published data on gas resources. Moreover, the recoverable quantities exclude any gas that is flared, as well as gas consumed in production operations.

Natural gas production rose year-by-year during the 1990s, reflecting burgeoning consumption in the power generation sector and higher exports at the end of the decade, following the commissioning of the Interconnector pipeline between Bacton in the UK and Zeebrugge in Belgium, in October 1998. Total output peaked in 2000, since when it has followed a downward trend year-by-year.