§ 15 Mr. Hooleyasked the Secretary of State for Energy what is his current estimate of the number of years during which North Sea oil will be available in reasonable quantities, assuming a rate of depletion not exceeding 100 million tonnes in any one year.
§ Mr. GrayRemaining recoverable oil reserves on the United Kingdom continental shelf are estimated to have been between 1,900 and 4,075 million tonnes at the end of last year. An assumed arbitrary rate of production of 100 million tonnes a year would suggest that the oil would be depleted in 19 and 40 years. In practice, for technical reasons, it is unlikely that producing fields would be able to sustain such a level of production over the whole period.