§ 19. Mr. S. O. Daviesasked the Minister of Power if he will publish details of the manner in which the North Sea and the seas adjacent to Great Britain were prospected for natural gas; and why he estimates that within a few years the quantity will be increased to about three times its present output.
§ Mr. MarshInformation about the search for natural gas on the British Continental Shelf is published in the recent 'White Paper on Fuel Policy (Cmnd. 3438), in the Ministry of Power Statistical 'Digest for 1966 and in my Annual Reports under the Continental Shelf Act, 1964.
84 wells have been drilled and four important fields already located.
As stated in the White Paper the recoverable reserves of natural gas in the fields already licensed in the North Sea are enough to build up a production rate of some 3,000 million cubic feet a day within five or six years, which is equal to nearly three times our present consumption of town gas.