Thursday 26 March 2015

Oil & Gas UK comments on Shell UK and TAQA announcements

Noting announcements from Shell UK and TAQA on measures to tackle the issue of rising costs, Mike Tholen, Oil & Gas UK’s economics director, said: “With up to 23 billion barrels of oil and gas still to be recovered from the UK continental shelf (UKCS), the province offers vast potential. However its attractiveness as a destination for investment has been severely curtailed in recent years by rising costs, an onerous tax regime and under-resourced regulation, worsened by the drop in oil price.

“The new Oil and Gas Authority is progressing apace and the Budget announcement last week laid the foundations for the regeneration of the UK North Sea. As we said at the time, however, it is crucial that the industry itself now builds on this by delivering the cost and efficiency improvements required to secure its competitiveness. While these are tough decisions to take given the impact on people, the measures are being taken by many companies and will allow the UK to benefit in the long-term from a boost to energy security, hundreds of thousands of highly skilled jobs and billions of pounds worth of supply chain exports.”

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