UPDATE - Britain faces heavy reliance on gas imports
Date: 06-Sep-01
Country: UK
Author: Neil Chatterjee
Historically self-sufficient in energy supply, thanks to prolific oil and gas fields in the North Sea, Britain was forced last winter to import gas due to high demand.
Although still a net exporter of gas, Britain will become a net importer by about 2005, analysts say.
"In future, Britain will become increasingly dependent on imports of fuel, particularly gas," Energy Minister Brian Wilson told an industry conference in Aberdeen, Britain's oil capital.
During the course of 2000 Britain produced 1.258 million gigawatt hours, exporting 146,000 GWh and importing 26,000 GWh, according to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).
The UK faces the prospect of moving from using gas, oil and nuclear power to generate power in roughly equal measures to being 70 percent dependent on gas by 2020.
Up to 90 percent of that gas might have to be imported, officials said.
The projection could be tempered by opening up new areas for exploration, with the government planning to offer new exploration licences by the end of the year, Wilson said.
"If all of our hopes in the west of the Shetlands (in the north-east Atlantic) are realised, the 90 percent projection may never happen," he said at the Offshore Europe 2001 conference.
But former energy minister Colin Moynihan, now chairman of Consort Resources, said the reality of the gas situation was daunting because the government estimates already rely on developing new fields.
"It's a best-guess scenario. It could be more severe," he said.
Britain needed to focus on designing an import culture, by forming better relations with other gas producers such as Norway and Russia, he said. It also needed to work out how to maximise indigenous supplies.
"There's a worying degree of complacency. We're poised in the calm water before the storm. We need sentiments turned into practical policies," he said.
His remarks came as the government ponders its energy future with a wide ranging energy review, expected to be completed by the end of the year.
However, minister Wilson remained upbeat on the potential of the North Sea for Britain's energy needs, with as many as 200 possible new licences to be granted to explore fallow areas that were previously thought commercially unviable.
"I am issuing my own challenge to the oil and gas industry to unlock the hundreds of new fields lying unexploited on the UK's continental shelf," he said.
