Britain’s oil and gas fields have increased production for the first time in more than 15 years, figures show.
Government statistics for the first 10 months of 2015 show oil and gas produced on the UK continental shelf up 8.6% from a year earlier, the industry body Oil & Gas UK said. It added that, based on that number, it expected production for all of 2015 to be between 7% and 8% higher.
The result was better than the small increase it had expected, the group said, but it warned that improving production this year would be hard after oil prices slumped to levels not seen since before the financial crisis.
Britain’s oil and gas output has more than halved in the last 15 years as accessible sources ran low and investment in new fields failed to keep up with demand. A fresh push to explore new areas of the North Sea in recent years led to new fields starting up in 2015.
