§ Mr. Campbellasked the Secretary of State for Energy if he will make a statement about progress on the award of fifth round petroleum production licences.
§ Dr. J. Dickson MabonIt will be recalled that the awards announced earlier this year were conditional on the settling768W of joint operating agreements to my satisfaction, and the agreement of an exploration programme for the early years of the licences. These conditions have now been met by the companies listed below, and I shall accordingly be writing to them confirming their awards. Progress is being made with regard to the remaining conditional awards, which will be the subject of further announcements. The companies whose awards I am now confirming, and the blocks to be awarded, are as follows:
- BNOC
- Monsanto Ltd.
- Pacific Petroleums (UK) Ltd.
- GAO (UK) Ltd., block 13/18;
- British Gas Corporation, block 98/22;
- Hydrocarbons Great Britain Ltd., blocks 107/16, 107/21, 110/9;
- BNOC
- General Crude Oil (UK) Ltd.
- Newmont Oil Company International (UK) Ltd.
- Rowan Petroleum (UK) Ltd., block 13/20;
- BNOC
- Occidental Petroleum (Scapa) Ltd.
- Getty Oil (Britain) Ltd.
- Allied Chemical (Great Britain) Ltd.
- Thomson Scottish Petroleum Ltd., block 14/18;
- BNOC
- Texaco North Sea UK Ltd., blocks 14/11, 23/26b, 106/15 and 106/20;
- BNOC
- Shell UK Ltd.
- Esso Petroleum Co. Ltd., blocks 13/15, 13/27 and 30/17b.
- BNOC
- Shell UK Ltd., block 87/10.