§ Mr. ToddTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry when she will announce further petroleum licensing opportunities in Great Britain and on the UK continental shelf. [6459]
§ Mr. WilsonI am today launching the 10th Round of Landward Petroleum Licensing and issuing an invitation for companies to apply for three blocks in the North sea.
The Landward Round will, as in recent licence offers, invite applications for Petroleum Exploration and Development Licences over all unlicensed acreage in Great Britain above the Mean High Water Mark. While there are still prospects for conventional oil and gas discoveries, I anticipate that a large number of applications will be made from companies keen to exploit the potential of coal bed methane, either through direct drilling or by tapping into the gases released from abandoned coal workings.
The invitation to apply for landward licences fulfils commitments given by Ministers in the past to hold annual rounds and satisfies a demand from industry for further licensing opportunities.
610WThe three blocks in the North sea—30/24, 42/25 and 43/21—are being offered through the 'out of round' process because of the benefit that early activity might bring. One of the blocks contains the abandoned Argyll Field and I hope that it will be possible for the eventual licensees to re-activate the field and bring it back into production, thus ensuring that the valuable petroleum resources still trapped in the ground can be extracted.
The formal notices for each of these licensing opportunities will appear in the Official Journal of the European Communities in the near future. Applications for both the onshore and offshore must be submitted to the Department on 31 October.