Milestone for the oil industry

16 October 2006

The 10,000th oil well has been drilled in the seabed surrounded the UK since 1964, when the first was created in the North Sea.

More than £330 billion has been invested in the UK's oil industry, providing £215 billion in tax revenues for HM Treasury, according to oil and gas data management service Common Data Access (CDA).

Malcolm Fleming, CDA's chief executive, said: "Back in the early sixties when the UK oil and gas industry was still in its infancy, they said the North Sea would be finished by the end of the Millennium.

"Today, the industry may be mature but it is still going strong. We think there could be up to another 27 billion barrels of oil and gas yet to recover which, incidentally, is about the sum total of reserves we thought existed back in 1975."

The news comes as oil prices rise slightly prior to an expected cut in oil production by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).

The last time Opec reduced its output was in December 2004, when output was cut by one million barrels per day, at which time oil prices had fallen to a $40 (£21.46) low.