UK oil and gas investment is looking good after the UK Government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change [DECC] announced earlier today, 25th October, the winners of the record breaking 167 new licences awarded in the 27th Licensing Round.
These licences cover 330 North Sea blocks; and 61 more blocks are under environmental assessment.
Back in May DECC announced that the 27th Licensing Round had attracted a total of 224 applications covering 418 blocks of the UK Continental Shelf, the most ever received and 37 more than the previous high received in the last licensing round.
Energy Minister John Hayes says: ‘Fortune has favoured the UK. Oil and gas from our waters provides around half the energy we need to heat our homes, fuel our cars and power our industry. It is the single largest industrial UK investor, supporting 440,000 jobs, and benefits the UK’s trade balance to the tune of £40 billion.
‘This successful licensing round shows we are taking the right action to offer certainty and confidence to investors. Our fiscal regime is now encouraging small fields into production and our licensing regime supports new faces as well the big players to invest. Importantly, we are guaranteeing every last economic drop of oil and gas is produced for the benefit of the UK.
‘It is our work with industry that is cultivating this precious resource, making our seas a fertile landscape for investors for many years to come.’
From Argyll’s perspective, a block of licences has been awarded in the Atlantic, west of Tiree and Coll.
In the light of a recent article and consequent conversations on this site – concerning licences for the Rathlin Basim and the productive potential in its proximity and geological relationship to waters off Kintyre and Islay, the sea area map showing the licences awarded west of Tiree will be great interest.
The map shows a great swathe of waters off Argyll in which blocks are on offer; and blocks already licensed to the immediate south of Islay and towards Kintyre.
There is another matter of substantial importance in relation to the ongoing controversy over the UK Government’s radical reorganisation of coastguard cover and incident coordination for the entire UK, including inshore and offshore islands.
We include a second downloadable map below, for licences awarded today, licences already awarded and b locks on offer in what is regarded as a valuable but difficult extraction area west of Shetland. The map is a virtual blizzard of activity.
Conjure the welter of industry service shipping and air transport in this area – in addition to the variety of floating and semi submersible platforms themselves – with anchor handlers, supply ships, FSOs, tankers and helicopters, all in the hostile conditions of the open Atlantic.
Then add the growing installations in the Atlantic off the Argyll coast and islands.
The possibility of a serious human and environmental disaster is ever present in this context.
At best there will one Emergency Towing Vessel within reach and in the event of any serious incident – which in these physical circumstances cannot be discounted – and with chronic understaffing at the coastguard stations, a key incident coordination role would be played by the call centre at Fareham on the south coast in Hampshire, whose knowledge of local circumstances would be far from automatic.
If there are going to be oil & gas installations then there will be more platform supply vessels and anchor handlers than you can shake a stick at, all of which can and do tow anything that needs towing.
Companies have been extracting oil & gas from the even more hostile waters west of Shetland for 15 years, this is not going to require new technology or taking any new risks. The PFEER regulations require a very high level of safety coverage, particularly ERRV cover on platforms, so if anything the Argyll coast will be safer, not more dangerous.
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And here’s hoping that Campbeltown would prove to be a suitable base for these vessels.
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Greenock and the ports on the Ayrshire coast are more likely bases, as they are all accessible by rail.
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Campbeltown is closer / more sheltered, and surely in reality much of the heavy supplies involved can just as (or more) easily be delivered by sea as by rail? Presumably Glasgow airport or maybe Prestwick would be the base for crew transfers by helicopter, but Campbeltown’s airport could be just as (or more) convenient for airfreight supply.
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I was referring to crew changes for the service vessels; If you watched the BBC programme about Aberdeen harbour that was on Monday you would see the volume of shipping(a prize if you can guess which is my ship; blink and you’ll miss her!), every vessel has a crew change(10-15) every 4-6 weeks. It would require a very cheap and frequent air service to get crews to and from Campbeltown for less than the cost of steaming the distance from Kintyre to the Ayrshire coast.
Helicopters are usually only used for rig workers and crew on survey ships; if the landing fees are low enough Machrihanish might pick up a fair amount of trade, but they’ll have to fight Aldergrove, Glasgow and Preswick for it. If nothing else it’s likely Campbeltown would get a much more frequent air service.
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Thanks for the tip – it’s got the makings of being a very interesting series, especially if they’re prepared to film one of those days when Aberdeen harbour becomes inaccessible because of the ‘wrong kind of weather’
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It all makes a bit of a nonsense of the Unionist parties’ insistence that business confidence and investment is being hit by uncertainty in the run-up to the Referendum. The oil companies seem very confident, and why shouldn’t they?
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Regardless of the colour or location of government, the oil will keep flowing; you can take that to the bank.
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I wouldn’t get to excited about the west coast leases…these are exploration blocks…it wil be a whillllllllllllle before you see any results….
And if anybody thinks the UK will rearrange it’s “offshore” teritorial waters to suit a break up of the union…it will not.
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A lot of licences are acquired as hedges, in varying degrees of speculation and with no immediate or even mid term intent to do even exploration drilling.
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“And if anybody thinks the UK will rearrange it’s “offshore” teritorial waters to suit a break up of the union…it will not.”
You sound very sure about that. Do you have inside info? It’s not as if the Westminster government have a track record on this is it? Oh….. they do don’t they!
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as you say “Yes they do…” they will remain UK waters.
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Oh, I get it now. You’re saying the rUK will keep ALL the waters. That would be interesting.
Are you feeling OK? Perhaps a lie down for a while?
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I think Karl means the boundaries will not move; I think there is a disagreement over the north sea boundary, which was moved in England’s favour(and without reference to Holyrood) a few years ago. Doubtless this will be one of the myriad things that will have to be thrashed out if a ‘yes’ vote occurs.
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