Oil and Gas: UK Continental Shelf

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they will take to promote new exploration and enhanced recovery of oil and gas from the United Kingdom’s continental shelf.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (Lord Henley) (Con)]

My Lords, the Maximising Economic Recovery of UK Petroleum strategy sets out the steps that the industry and the Oil and Gas Authority must take to secure that the maximum value of economically recoverable oil and gas is recovered from the strata beneath UK waters. Most recently, the Government have provided £45 million for seismic surveys in underdeveloped areas, and data from those will support the forthcoming 31st offshore licensing round.

[Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD)]

I thank the Minister for that reply. As noble Lords will be aware, the industry has had a pretty traumatic two or three years, but nevertheless it accounts for hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions of pounds of benefit to the balance of payments. However, not enough exploration, development and enhanced recovery investment is taking place. Will the Government ensure that there are sufficient incentives, not subsidies, to make this happen rather than just encourage it to do so? We should recognise that if we do not look, we do not find, and we cannot produce.

[Lord Henley]

I agree with the noble Lord that the industry has had a pretty traumatic time but I think things are picking up. As he said, this is very important for energy security, jobs, the economy and—dare I say it—the Exchequer. As I said in my original Answer, we are providing funds for seismic surveys to help in the next round. As the noble Lord will be aware, some 61 companies got licences in the previous round, with the potential to produce some 320 million barrels of oil equivalent. I hope something similar or better will come from the next round.