From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
JANUARY 31, 2022
By Paul Homewood
From Oil Price.Com:
The UK could become much more vulnerable to price shocks and geopolitical events unless new offshore fields are approved and developed—and the UK’s gas production could plummet by 75 percent by 2030, the offshore energy industry body OGUK said on Thursday.
Without new investment in new gas fields in the North Sea, the UK will be left more vulnerable to crisis, such as the current one between Russia and Ukraine, the industry association noted.
Additional price shocks would add to the ongoing energy crisis in the UK where gas and power suppliers are going bust, while customers face a cost-of-living crisis when the energy market regulator Ofgem raises the price cap on energy bills as of April 1. The worst is yet to come for consumers in April, when millions of households would be thrown into energy poverty, with many people having to choose between eating and heating.
Domestic production currently meets 47 percent of the UK’s gas demand, 31 percent comes from pipeline imports from Europe, mostly from Norway, and 21 percent from LNG imports. In 2020, Russia supplied 3.4 percent of the UK’s gas, OGUK said.
According to the industry body, new fields are needed in the UK North Sea to stave off a predicted 75-percent plunge in domestic supplies if no new fields are approved. Many fields remain to be tapped, according to geological surveys. Such fields are estimated to contain oil and gas equivalent to 10-20 billion barrels of oil—enough to sustain production for 10-20 years, OGUK said.
“In the longer term, if UK gas production is allowed to fall as predicted, then our energy supplies will become ever more vulnerable to global events over which we have no control – as we now see happening with Russia’s threatened invasion of Ukraine,” OGUK Energy Policy Manager Will Webster said on Thursday.
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/UK-Gas-Production-Could-Plunge-75-By-2030.html
The Brits also wussied out on doing fracking, in terrain that seems well suited to that technique.
is there any fracking in Europe?
Nope
As I understand it, the UK has been fracking in UK waters/North Sea for donkeys years, fracking is simply a drilling technique first tried in Texas in 1945. The ONLY new technology in fracking is horizontal drilling! There is a huge amount of deliberate & malignant misinformation about fracking, sponsored probably by the unreliable energy industry fearing losing all those taxpayer funded subsidies to make their industry look profitable. All UK energy users have to pay a renewable energy charge as part of their bills which go to subsidise that faux industry!!! We also have dozens & dozens of gas-fired power stations (plants in US) running on tick-over for when the wind stops blowing & the sun stops shining!!! Not particularly efficient!!!
so, I’ll rephrase- no horizontal fracking in the UK or EU? I did know the difference but didn’t think to clarify it
Effectiveness totally depends on the predominant stress direction in the rocks – horizontal or vertical.
US is generally hugely favourable for horizontal drilling resulting in lower costs. Australia on the other hand is not nearly so well suited for horizontal drilling.
“The Brits”
The Americans have done the greatest amount of damage possible to Western civilisation with their exports of utter insanity – aka political correctness, and wokery.
The Parliamentary dictatorship cares not what people think or want. Wasn’t there a tea party about that?
I believe socialism in all its forms originated in Europe. Post-modernism, the philosophical and intellectual buttress that supports socialism today is also of European origin, and is now prevalent throughout all Western institutions. Cultural Marxism (aka ‘wokeism’ or ‘political correctness’) and CAGW are just the tips of the spears.
That’s one of the most succinct descriptions of socialism and post-modernism I’ve seen. Thanks for that.
Marx wrote Das Kapital while hanging out in the British Museum. So, you could say the Brits were responsible for the release of the pernicious evil of communism into the world. The accident of geography does not yoke any country to the unfortunate excesses of individuals.
Das Kapital was written by 2 German writers, Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, whilst in England but based on ideas first expounded during the French Revolution by mostly French writers. Not sure Britain can shoulder the lions share of the blame for that one!
Marx had a classical education, turned up in England, David Urquhart of the British Library adopted him, Engels starved him (kids died) so here we have a classic British operation. Marx refused to deal with the American System of Carey, already well known – I wonder why?
He also used to enjoy champagne picnics in Hyde Park (London) on Sunday afternoons, very Socialist giving rise to the expression from the 1950s of Champagne Socialists, wealthy elites posing as Socialists but not really embracing it!!!
I accused one of my friends of being a chardonnay socialist but he replied that he was actually a shiraz socialist
While “hanging out” Marx is reputed to have read all the volumes of Hansard, the record of British parliamentary debates stretching back some centuries. This was his main background work for his tome on capitalism.He was obviously a sucker for punishment!
Europe has been trying to subvert the US because its world leading success economically makes it difficult to sell socialism as the way to go.The terrible history of socialism doesn’t help much either but they soldier on with it. Indeed, the ‘United States of Europe’ was meant to be a competitor economic powerhouse.
Wokery in the US by the ‘Democrats’ actually is a success of Eurocentric efforts. The UN, world universities, public institutions… have all been thoroughly corrupted. Wokery isnt really a change of heart, though. It is a cynical pathway to riches and power. But, even with half the country sold out, Europe is still hugely outmatched.
Yurp is painfully aware of it’s Frankfurt School, the French Existentialists – been there, done that.
The US has not not yet fully come to grips – Trumps banning of CRT was a sure sign something is happening.
Americans and “Brits” are not a single political group…as well as in Canada….Australia…NZ….maybe that is the problem…if only the far left wing radicals could be deported…to Cuba…Russia…China…Iran…Venezuela.
They are the Five Eyes – ask Ed Snowden…
If you think Europe didn’t have plenty of wokeness and political correctness before it arrived from the US, you haven’t been paying attention.
Political correctness, I’ll grant you but ‘woke’ is a uniquely American invention, no matter where it has been exported to.
Woke is just political correctness on steroids.
No it isn’t! Not by a long shot. ‘Woke’ is (poorly educated) conspiracy theory ideation mixed with a racist agenda and a large amount of anti-establishment or anarchist ideology. Dismissing it as just ‘political correctness on steroids’ is a huge mistake – it’s a lot more dangerous than that.
I believe this is a pretty good distinction Richard. Well put.
Correct – the Frankfurt School was exported by nominally American activists.
Correct – the Frankfurt School was exported from Germany by nominally American activists.
Won’t they be praying to the West wind and the North wind with all those thousands of windmills being built?
Those are the prayer wheels.
there shall be lots of praying- but the wind Gods don’t come cheap- they’ll extract a stiff price
That’s going to be a problem when the “warming hole” in the Atlantic grows while leadership parties in the back rooms. Just don’t come looking for handouts and pitching special relationship. The unsinkable energy policy is headed full speed for cold waters up ahead. Better get the too few backup generators out and lower away.
UK politicians have/are making their beds, now they’ll have to lie in them. They just better hope when they wake up that the masses aren’t standing over them with sharp objects ready to carve them up like sushi.
Unfortunately, I think the likelihood of a mass revolt against this nonsense is unlikely. The change happens gradually, with people adjusting to less power and heat, grumbling but accepting it all as necessary because “the North Sea is not producing like it was.” Which will be true, but only because not enough new drilling is occurring.
Few news outlets will point that energy poverty is unnecessary, because as a class they believe they are acting nobly by advancing the fight against climate change. It’s not a conspiracy as much as an elitist belief that the “experts” know best, and we should collectively submit to their decisions.
This is how the West darkens. Not suddenly, but slowly, so that people forget they once had plenty of power. Just like they seem to forget that at one time weather was widely acknowledged to involve great floods and droughts and temperature variations. Now that only happens because of climate change.
I have visions for a skit along the lines:
A: It’s blowing up a squall
B: (gloomily) Climate change
A: Clouding over…
B: Climate change
A: Raining cats and dogs…
B: Climate change
A: Easing off now
B: Climate change
A: Sun’s out again
B: Climate change
At this point C picks up B bodily, and dumps them out of the room… comes back in and says
Climate change isn’t all that bad, is it?
A: Yes, the son is out again!
I think that is the plan of many but I think reality will have something to say because it’s only gradual at the start but then suddenly it’s barreling down the slope so it cannot be hid.
Like is happening in Europe this winter where they are hanging onto the cliff.
We could easily see an explosion and revolution where leaders unwilling to see reality may end up with their own personal Mussolini moments.
Lots of piano wire in Europe I think
I have no issue so long as they don’t expect us to save them.
Why shoot yourself in the toe when you can shoot the whole leg off.
Concealed carry for sawn-off’s? Which states?
And no doubt some will seize on the 75% drop in gas production as proof that we have reached peak gas.
A more subtle disaffection developing with Johnson as Prime Minister in the UK is his net zero approach. Gas production and power generation seems to be something the UK is to import rather than produce for ourselves and export from the large reserves we have in the UK.
Could?
Will.
Every slimy political organism in the UK can’t wait to get the words climate change into any conversation. There is nobody in politics that is opposed to the madness of net zero.
The more they want it the more their virtue is signalled
When the western worlds msm and politicians tell us that CO2 is going to destroy us , they can get away with anything .
But reality will win in the end despite all the environmental and economic craziness happening now .
Reality hasn’t even done its laces up
Sometimes the system has to break before it can be fixed. That seems to fit the UK energy policy foolishly based on net zero. And break it soon will.
The quicker it breaks and the worse the pain the better. Unfortunately we now have another year to go before they system can break.
Having said that, in April, there will be millions of people who will have such large energy bills, they might start paying attention and refuse to vote for all the main political parties who have made braking the system part of policy.
No ye don’t – watch Powell tighten interest rates!
No no no.
This is all very easily avoided – simply bung 10,000 troops onto a airyplane and sent i to Ukraine and help Vladimir out. He’ll be eternally grateful I’m sure.
simple (assuming the UK actually *does* have that many)
Or, we could become International Paraiahs by sending a few fracking rigs into Lancashire and or Notts
So Princess Nutz, what’s it to be? *You* got us into this mess after all
Ukraine got themselves into this mess by siphoning off huge volumes of gas in transit, let them sort it out with Russia. Why the hell should we get ourselves involved in what was just a local squabble over fuel bills? Oh yeah, that’s right – the Biden/Obama connection.
Even NYT is going after Hunter now….
How are Al Gore & Obama getting on in their $4M mansions on the sea-shore? Hope the rising sea-levels aren’t inundating their homes!!!
usual pro Kremlin crap again.
here is from the REAL Russia.
The Russia I know personally.
“The petition, whose authors include more than 100 prominent rights advocates, scientists, journalists and politicians, has received over 3,000 signatures so far.
Its authors accuse Russia’s leadership of “deceiving and using people” by promoting “only one point of view” on state-run media: “the idea of a holy war with the West instead of developing the country and raising the standard of living of its citizens.”
“But no one asks the citizens of Russia. There is no public discussion. … The question of price is not discussed, but it is ordinary people who will have to pay this price — a huge and bloody price.”
What medication are you on? I haven’t talked much about Russia – that’s all in your head. If you dig into this mess far enough it becomes clear that America, Russia and Ukraine have roughly equally dirty hands. Talking about war over, essentially, minor matters is ridiculous; Biden talking about crossing the nuclear threshold if Russia invades is, quite frankly, insane. Perhaps you should have denounced most of the countries for unwarranted sabre rattling – the only country that looks to have a modicum of good sense is Germany, who blocked EU arms shipments to Ukraine and agreed to send medicines and field hospitals in case of the worst. Needless to say, the corrupt warmongering regime in Kyiv rejected that offer and demanded more and more weapons instead – says a huge amount about Ukraine regime in one instance, doesn’t it? The last excerpt you quote could just as easily be said about the people of Ukraine who are not having a good time of it under the new management.
What’s all the fuss about? As shown here :
US LNG Exports Hit New Record Highs
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/12/06/us-lng-exports-hit-new-record-highs/
the US to the rescue – all Yurpeans have to do is build LNG terminals and buy at 4 times Russian prices! A Free Lunch (sorry, market) for US exporters!
Meanwhile there is no threat of an invasion – the Ukrainian ‘crisis’ blocks NordStream2, and, hey, there is all that US LNG to export?
Europeans have plenty of energy, they just refuse to dig it up
Germany had plenty – until it turned off Nuclear. Sure one digs up a bit of Uranium, somewhere, but that is a far shot from actually powering the grid.
Aside from a few tankers that were hastily diverted to Europe, most of those exports are going elsewhere. Nordstream 2 could have got Europe out of a hole it had dug but agitators in Germany and Ukraine are busily buggering that up by the numbers. Aside from the lost revenues, Putin is likely to be laughing his head off at the wailing and gnashing of teeth in the completely ineffectual West. It’s become part tragedy and part pantomime.
Agitators in D.C. – see the spectacle at the UN yesterday. German agitators also, but this a major power play. And Britain is flying in stuff, as is the US. The usual British provocations are in full play – CNN reporting Matthew Chance’s fabricated lies.
The EU has ignored agitators in DC quite successfully before – the South Stream and Blue1 pipelines to Turkey and southern Europe have gone ahead. This time it’s a German agitator buggering things up at the delivery end of the pipeline. Why the hell are the EU enabling Naftogaz in the Ukraine in their efforts to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gas from the transit pipeline? I simply don’t understand why they think the current pipeline is good and the new Nordstream one is bad.
Fair enough – now see what Orban of Hungary just did :
https://www.rt.com/russia/547980-putin-orban-partnership-talks-moscow/
¨Putin went on to say that Russia and Hungary had signed long-term contracts that would allow the EU nation to purchase discounted gas from Russia until 2036. He also reported that Hungary currently buys gas five times cheaper than the European market rate.¨
Now imagine what Brussels is throwing up! Barf bags ready!
It comes down to a rabid Enron-style spot-price radical ideology, straight from the London School of Economics. Leyen, Baerboeck and many more hail from that school set in a silver’d sea (to paraphrase The Bard).
Interestingly enough Hungary threw out George Soro’s CEU recently. Soros, a pupil of Sir Karl Popper at the LSE. Curious, what?
Bonbon talking utter pro-KGB crap as per usual.
If youlove Russia somuch how come you don’t go and live there eh?
Put your ass where your mouth is and all that?
It’s got absolutely nothing to do with being pro or anti Russia. The simple fact is that EU has one way of buying gas, which has blown up in its face dropping everyone around into a bit of a hole, whilst Hungary has enjoyed an uninterrupted flow of cheap gas through the South Stream pipeline, which bypasses Ukraine; draw your own conclusions, please.
The situation has been dictated by the prices in markets and by the cost of shipping which has been high, so longer voyages cost much more – including time spent waiting e.g. to transit the Panama Canal in voyage time (as much as 18 days on demurrage reported at one point, compared with 14 days to sail from Corpus Christi to Milford Haven) has favoured European destinations over Asia for some weeks now. The Asian market fell away on the back of warmer weather and full storage. Nice chart here:
https://timera-energy.com/nw-european-regas-touches-all-time-highs/
shows how violently the price differentials between Europe (TTF) and Japan/Korea (JKM) have flipped. Big money for traders who diverted their ships promptly.
Currently, I’m seeing at least 80% of UK LNG imports coming from the US, with the jetties being very busy at Milford Haven in particular.
It does add up to a Free Lunch (sorry, Market)…
Oh no it isn’t!!!
The Dem bill : “Defending Ukraine Sovereignty Act of 2022,” is a shale bailout :
The CEO of EQT said :
“Yeah absolutely, it’s the United States. And the United States LNG industry powered by American shale is a solution that could prevent this type of crisis that we’re seeing over there in Europe from happening.”
We know shale is heavily in debt.
It isn’t just problems in developing new supplies. One would have to be really “special” in order to invest your private capital in any aspect of UK energy production. You might be looking at a 40 year investment and the idiots close you down after 4.
Once they realise that we need FF regardless of their plans, the Government will be forced to provide the finance for it all. Exploration, exploitation, infrastructure, power stations…
Given the level of imports currently and the expected huge increase in renewables by 2030, I fail to see a problem.
Griff, you just fail, period.
Griff doing his best Neville Chamberlain impersonation.
I’ve heard it said that Chamberlain actually had his eyes wide open. He bought time for Britain to build up war fighting capability. Don’t know if that’s a true take.
Given the problem that renewables are already causing, you will be paying even more to import natural gas in the future.
That’s if the gas is still available – if the Democrats get a free rein then the supply from Russia will be shut off to favour their friends in Ukraine and they’ll have a damn good go at shutting the US production down.
Renewables aren’t causing any problems – as shown by your failure, once again, to cite any actual evidence
Exactly the same evidence provided for the huge increase in renewables by 2030. Vaporware rules.
you see, Griffster, it is exactly the problem with unreliables. How about you? What do you do for energy?
I am reliably supplied by the UK grid…
Griff the !*@)!#!@! idiot!
Climate change: EU’s plan to call natural gas ‘sustainable’ triggers backlash – CNN
Remove your blinkers, mate
you’re always hanging on to “expected” as if expectation equals reality. WHAT IF, griff – just consider, WHAT IF those renewables fall through, or don’t meet the need?
Or do you live in a fantasy world where NOTHING ever fails?
(Pretty sure I know which it is)
The seabed leases have been allocated, the strike price agreed under CfD, the environmental surveys are done or ongoing, the contracts for power lines, pilings and turbines are awarded… there is very, very, very little chance of these things not going ahead. Some of it is already building.
Yep, fantasy world.
Look at your first utility bill after April. Then you may see a problem.
It’ll be big fossil fuel causing the problem, after all it’s been a windy few days in High Wycombe and there’s been no interruption to power
I’m expecting a £27 rebate, due to renewables companies having to pay back the money they get when electricity price goes above their strike rate for renewables.
I already told you that the rebate will be just £1.39. Before the very large increases that are going to be announced tomorrow.
What Griff fails to see:
Source: Timera
A massive looming capacity deficit that caused a panicked BEIS to try and find an additional 5.361GW of dispatchable capacity by next winter for which it will pay £75/kW, adding some £400m to bills. If it had had some foresight it could have bought as much as 10 GW extra when it ran a T-3 auction at the start of 2020 for just £25/kW, and if it hadn’t insisted on blowing up coal plants there would be no problem providing it. Now it look as though they will fail to procure the necessary volume, so balancing costs will soar any time the market is at all tight. Last year that added £2.35bn to bills, including almost £600m for November alone.
You mean unreliable I’m sure.
There’s the Griff we know and laugh at
Yes but, as you shiver, hungry and in the dark, think of how you are “saving the planet.” Think of the children!
Try to outbid Californians for this green product. Maybe you can find space on the Drax wood pellet cargo ships too.
Colorado company readies to start turning Iowa cow manure into fuel (yahoo.com)
This chart has a simple message: if you have no alternative but to import, you will pay top dollar. If you are self-sufficient (as the UK used to be) you will have competitively priced supply.
Looking at production of NG by region Europe’s problem is obvious, a major consumer but production has increased for 20years.
There was a similar drop in global production in 2009 as 2020. Difference was in 2010 we weren’t building back better or “greener”
Putin should refuse to supply a single molecule to war-mongering Brits. Let em survive winters on hot air, woolly jumpers, bangers n mash and God Save the Queen.
Last time I looked Russia was supplying max of 7% of UK gas… and plenty of other sources for it.
In 2020 Russia supplied gas to 14 countries in the EU as follows
Finland 94%, Latvia 93%, Estonia 79%, Bulgaria 77%, Slovakia 70%, Austria 64% Greece 51%, Germany 49% Italy 46%, Poland 40%, Slovenia 40%, France 24%, Netherlands 11% and Romania 10%.
If Russia stops supplying gas to the EU and it needs to find it from elsewhere then there are not going to be plenty of other sources for the UK to find gas.
Info from
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201743/russian-gas-dependence-in-europe-by-country
(Dated Sept 2021)
Hey nice to read some more crap from the SPB troll factory eh?
How’s your best mate Putin’s cook doing?
The criminal Prigozhin?
Shouldn’t worry about lack of new Western investment: there will be plenty of investors using Yuan and Rubles swooping in to pick up large pieces at bargain basement prices.
This is exactly the same ridiculous concoction posing as journalism as the “England will see 200k people will die from Covid” type articles……….