Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the response by Lord Callanan on 3 November (HL Deb col 1215), what estimate they have made of the amount of (1) oil, (2) gas, and (3) coal, currently accessible and expected to be extracted from open sites in UK jurisdictions.

The Oil and Gas Authority’s estimate for proven and probable (2P) UK petroleum reserves as at end 2020 is 4.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, and the estimate for the UK’s contingent (2C) resources as at end 2020 is 6.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

It is not possible to say with certainty how much of this will be extracted as this will be driven by a range of commercial and regulatory factors.

As of June 2021, the Coal Authority estimates that overall there are 3,814 million tonnes of coal resources. There are five current commercial projects* with a projected tonnage of around 35 million tonnes, of which around 14 million tonnes has been worked.

*Not including Forest of Dean gales.