North Sea Oil threatened says The Econominst

North Sea oil

Offshore fog

Bloated costs and falling profits threaten the future of North Sea oil

May 30th 2015

Try to keep it pumping

WHEN the North Sea oil- and gasfields were booming, inefficiencies mushroomed. Now, times are tough—and it may be too late for belt-tightening. The offshore industry, particularly the British bit of it, is squeezed between a lower oil price, stubbornly high costs, an ageing infrastructure and a looming bill of many billions of dollars for decommissioning old platforms.

The result threatens the profitable and unprofitable alike. If even a few companies which use the pipelines and terminals shut down, then the bill lands all the more heavily—and perhaps cripplingly—on the survivors. Similarly, if a piece of the infrastructure breaks (or its operator goes bust) then everyone who uses it is in trouble.

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