2017 trends for UK offshore production were disrupted by the stoppage in the Forties pipeline in December, which took several hundred thousand barrels of oil equivalent per day off line. Overall average oil offline on for the year dropped 61 kbpd (6.4%) and natural gas (including NGPLs) barely changed with an 800 boed drop. With the Forties issue exit rates don’t mean anything, but the running average oil production was on an upward trend in the second half of the year, which will continue through 2018, barring further major outages, while natural gas was noticeably declining and might struggle to maintain 2017s rate this year. 2016 reserve numbers fell for both oil and gas with few discoveries and some negative adjustments. Oil and gas production will decline from 2018, with accelerated falls from sometime in the mid-2020s without major new discoveries (which may include […]