§ Mrs. HumbleTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, pursuant to her answer to the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Mr. Todd) on 20 July 2001,Official Report, column 609W, on petroleum licensing, what decisions she has made on onshore licence awards. [36754]
§ Mr. WilsonI have decided to offer 22 Petroleum Exploration and Development Licences. In addition, I will offer another two licences provided that I am satisfied by further information yet to be supplied by the applicants.
These licences cover areas the length and breadth of the country, and include acreage never previously considered for oil and gas exploration. It is encouraging to see licences going to new applicants from both the UK and overseas—there are British, Italian, Canadian and Australian companies here, as operators or as partners. The high level of interest in this Round shows that the UK's onshore oil and gas industry has a strong future.
It is particularly good to be able to offer 14 licences to companies concentrating on gas from coal mines, offering the potential for new activity in former mining communities and helping to bring new activity and jobs to former mining areas, while contributing to the UK's energy supply, and helping to meet the Government's Kyoto targets by preventing unnecessary emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. The other 10 licences show that conventional oil and gas is not being overlooked and continues to attract a high level of interest itself.
The operators on each licence, with the blocks to be covered and a brief resume of the drilling portion of the Work Programme are as follows: