North Sea Oil

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Mittelplate drilling rig (oil field) in the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea

With North Sea oil are hydrocarbons ( petroleum and gas hereinafter) under the bottom of the North Sea Store. Oil was discovered in the North Sea in the early 1960s and production began in 1971. After the 1973 oil crisis , North Sea production became profitable and expanded on a large scale. In 1975 a pipeline to Teesside , Great Britain was opened.

Five countries have divided the North Sea according to their production areas: Norway , Great Britain, the Netherlands , Denmark and Germany . The production of North Sea oil had its oil production maximum in 1999, at that time the daily oil production was almost 6 million barrels (950,000 cubic meters). In 2004 the production of North Sea oil fell by 10 percent (230,000 barrels) and in 2005 by another 12.8 percent. This is why Great Britain went from being a net oil exporter to an importing nation in 2006. North Sea oil production is expected to decline to 2 million barrels by 2020.

Origin and supplies

Important oil (green) and gas (red) reserves in Europe.

Almost the entire oil reserves of the North Sea are the result of rift formations in the Upper Jurassic , locally also in the Lower Cretaceous . These occurred when the Atlantic began to open. The trench systems of Viking Graben , Central Graben and Moray Firth were created , which started radially from a volcanic center. During the trench formation, carbon-rich marine sediments (calcareous clay mineral Kimmeridge Clay ) were deposited .

As a result of the collapse of the trench system and the thermal settlement since the Upper Cretaceous , further sediments were deposited in the trenches. However, these were not sufficient to fill the trenches, so that the North Sea was crossed by three large deep-sea trenches at the beginning of the Paleogene . Only in the Paleogene did these fill up, so that the sediment layers there were up to three kilometers thick. During the Paleogene, the first sediments deposited during the formation of the rift formed petroleum several kilometers below the surface.

After its formation, the oil migrated mainly vertically through the rock strata, there are significant horizontal migrations especially in the Upper Jurassic and Tertiary rocks . The oil reserves lie along a north-south line in the middle of the North Sea with a concentration in the "East Shetland Basin", the gas reserves are mainly in the " Southern Bight " off the Dutch coast.

In total there are several dozen oil fields in the North Sea, with almost all of the oil being in a few large fields:

Surname sector Discovered
Start of funding		 Reserves
(estimated in billion barrels) 		Maximum capacity
(barrel / day)
Statfjord NorwayNorway Norway 1974 1979 4.5 740,000
Ekofisk NorwayNorway Norway 1969 1971 3.8 300,000
Oseberg NorwayNorway Norway 1979 1988 2.8 500,000
Forties United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 1970 1975 2.7 520,000
Brent United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 1971 1976 2.4 440,000
Gullfaks NorwayNorway Norway 1978 1986 2.3 530,000
Draugen NorwayNorway Norway 1984 1993 2.0 210,000
Snorre NorwayNorway Norway 1979 1992 1.4 360,000
Ninian United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 1974 1978 1.2 300,000
Heidrun NorwayNorway Norway 1985 1995 1.1 225,000
Valhall NorwayNorway Norway 1975 1982 0.9 168,000
Buzzard United KingdomUnited Kingdom United Kingdom 2001 2006 0.5 180,000

History of exploitation

First discoveries

Beryl Alpha drilling platform

Smaller gas fields on the British, Dutch and German North Sea coasts had been known since the 1930s. From 1939 the first exploration wells began in Denmark. In 1958, geologists accidentally discovered a gas field near Slochteren in the Dutch province of Groningen . It is the largest natural gas field in Europe and one of the largest in the world. It thus introduced a new quality to the expected funding. Since the same geographic formation that contained the gas in Groningen continues as far as the English coast near Yorkshire , it was reasonable to assume that the gas is also under the sea between the two countries. At that time the ownership rights to the North Sea in the high seas area were unclear; The weather at sea and the depth of the water presented the oil companies with numerous problems for which there were no or only expensive solutions.

A consortium made up of Royal Dutch Shell and Esso undertook test wells off the Dutch coast in the early 1960s, but discontinued them because of the unclear legal situation until the Continental Shelf Convention of the UN in 1964 became law and the division of the North Sea was regulated. The important border between the United Kingdom and Norway, the two countries with the longest coastline, then ran roughly south along the 62nd parallel north, following the meridian principle between the two coasts. In 1963 Norway granted the Phillips Petroleum Company on the one hand and a consortium of Exxon, Shell, British Petroleum and CFP on the other hand, exploration licenses in the Norwegian sector. The state tried to maintain control over the transnational companies by first issuing exploration licenses and only later production licenses.

In 1965, BP discovered the first British gas in the " West Sole Field ", followed by larger gas fields in 1966 and 1967, which also identified the southern British North Sea region as being rich in gas. Also in 1967 the first oil field was discovered in the Danish sector. In the late 1960s, the companies moved further north, where they were hoping for more oil. In 1969 the Phillips Petroleum Company discovered the “ Ekofisk ” field in the Norwegian sector - at that time one of the 20 largest oil fields in the world, which also contains very high-quality, low-sulfur oil. The first commercial exploitation took place from 1971, the Ekofisk oil was first transported with tankers, from 1975 with a pipeline to Cleveland , England . Also in 1971 geologists discovered the “Dan” field in the Danish sector, by far the largest field outside of the British-Norwegian area.

Since the oil price crises in 1973 and 1979/80

Statfjord A in 1982

In 1973/74 the price of oil rose from around three US dollars per barrel (159 liters ) to over twelve US dollars. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) had previously deliberately reduced production volumes. This suddenly made public awareness of how much the economies of all countries, especially the industrialized countries, were dependent on oil. The rise in the price of oil made the investments that were necessary before producing North Sea oil profitable. The European governments wanted to reduce the dependence on the OPEC states, from which around 80% of the oil needed in Europe came at that time. Norway in particular tried not to become dependent on international oil companies; the government founded Statoil and Norsk Hydro in 1972 . In the “ Statfjord ” field, Norway's largest oil field, Statoil received a minimum share of 50% for the first time - a rule that was then continued for all other fields. The investments in the promotion of North Sea oil created or kept jobs in European countries.

In 1974, Mobil discovered the Statfjord field in the Norwegian sector, which became the second largest Norwegian field to date. Shortly thereafter, geologists also found large fields in the British sector. On behalf of Royal Dutch Shell and BP , they discovered oil reserves in the Brent and Forties fields that were significant on an international scale. Governments have been successful at times in breaking OPEC's control of the oil market. This became clear at the end of 1985, when both Great Britain and Norway announced that they would increase production capacities and not participate in price fixing by OPEC. The price of Brent crude oil fell from $ 27 a barrel at the end of 1985 to $ 13.30 a barrel in March 1986, and other types of oil lost similar value.

In 1981, Norwegians discovered the Gullfaks field; Production began there in 1986. It was the first field exclusively exploited by Norwegian companies and became the third largest Norwegian oil field. In 1987 Statoil also took over the lead in the Statfjord Consortium. The state of Norway promoted Norwegian companies in the oil sector; today they are also active internationally. The Condeep technology for drilling rigs was developed in Norway . From 1999 to mid-2008, a long-term rise in oil prices favored the Norwegian oil industry and made Norway a very prosperous country .

In the 1980s, accidents also occurred on oil rigs in the North Sea. In 1980 Alexander Kielland was hit by several large waves in the Ekofisk field, including probably a monster wave ; one of her five legs broke. She capsized, 132 of the 212 men drowned. In 1988, the Scottish oil rig Piper Alpha burned ; 185 people died.

Additional large oil fields were discovered in the 1980s and 1990s. The production costs were considered comparatively high at the time. The oil produced is of high quality.

Developed and exhausted

Oil rig

There are now 450 drilling rigs in the sea , and the North Sea is the most important area for the offshore production industry. Most of the platforms are located in the UK sector of the North Sea, followed by the Norwegian, Dutch and Danish sectors. The British and Norwegian sectors contain by far the largest oil reserves. It is estimated that 54% of the oil and 45% of the gas reserves are in the Norwegian sector alone. In addition to the Ekofisk field, important oil fields are also the Norwegian Statfjord field, for the development of which the Norwegian channel was crossed with a pipeline for the first time . According to Norwegian law, the Norwegian state-owned company Statoil receives at least 50 percent of the shares in oil fields in the Norwegian sector. The largest natural gas field in the North Sea is the Troll field. It lies in the Norwegian Gully at a depth of 345 meters, so great efforts had to be made to develop it at all. With a height of 472 meters and a weight of 656,000 tons, the drilling platform is the largest offshore drilling platform and the largest object ever to be transported by humans.

In 2001 Norway was the third largest oil exporting country in the world. Its oil fields are exclusively offshore, with most of them concentrated at a water depth of around 150 meters. In 2001, the country produced 3.4 million barrels a day, and Norwegian investment in oil was $ 7.5 billion in the same year.

There are only two platforms in the German sector; it is the least developed sector in this regard. The larger of the two fields is the " Mittelplate " oil field .

Since the 1990s, significant changes have taken place in the global oil industry, which have also left their mark on the North Sea. The number of governments pursuing an economic policy path of liberalization and privatization increased. The financial markets became more volatile and the pressure on energy companies increased. These reacted through mergers and associations. The first of these was the merger of BP and Amoco in the 1990s. At the time, BP was the most important producer in the British sector, while Amoco had established itself primarily on the Norwegian side of the North Sea. The situation was similar with the next merger: Exxon was a major player in the British sector, while Mobil had concentrated on the Norwegian part of the North Sea.

In the meantime, the North Sea itself is regarded as a developed raw material area in which no major discoveries are to be expected. In January 2006 the Oil and Gas Journal (OGJ) located in the North Sea a total of proven reserves of 13.4 billion barrels of oil. Of these, the largest, with 57% of the total, were in the Norwegian sector and 30% in the UK. The situation in the areas of the continental slope in the transition to the European Arctic Ocean and in the Norwegian Barents Sea , where test drilling is only now beginning, is still uncertain .

future

Condeep

In 2006, all of the neighboring countries produced around 4.4 million barrels per day; in 2005 it was 4.7 million. Norway produces 57% of the volume at 2.5 million barrels / day, the United Kingdom 34% (1.5 million), Denmark 8% (352,000), Germany 1% (27,000) and the Netherlands also 1 % (23,000). Norway and Denmark are net exporters, while in 2006 the United Kingdom had to import more oil than it could export for the first time since 1980 . In Germany, German production volumes currently cover 2% of domestic demand. In 2005 Norway and Great Britain were the second most important exporters of oil to Germany after Russia and before the OPEC countries.

Since the central North Sea is considered to be developed and no more discoveries are expected there, the oil companies have started to orientate themselves towards the continental slope and thus into deeper water. Since the 1970s, Shell and BP have also orientated themselves in the area west of the Shetlands in water depths of over 500 meters. However, it took until BP discovered the Foinaven field in 1992 and thus the first deep water field in the North Sea region. Schiehallion and Loyal followed shortly afterwards . The first oil field in the adjacent European Arctic Ocean started production in 1993. The most important field there so far, the Huldra gas field , began production in 2001.

Infrastructures that are no longer profitable also have to be dismantled and boreholes sealed securely. In the British part of the North Sea, for example, around 5000 springs have to be sealed and 470 drilling platforms dismantled, plus over 10,000 km of u. a. radioactively contaminated pipelines are dug out of the North Sea floor and disposed of. Overall, total costs are assumed to be between 70 and 120 billion euros.

Sectors and Rights

Division of the North Sea

The division of the North Sea floor into Exclusive Economic Zones is divided into a series of bilateral and multilateral agreements between the neighboring states, which the respective states signed between 1965 and 1971. The North Sea floor is largely divided along the center line principle, according to which the boundaries on the sea floor lie on an imaginary center line between two coastal states. An exception is the German area, to which the additional duckbill belongs and which extends into the middle of the North Sea. Under the Treaties, the United Kingdom has 40% of the North Sea floor, Norway 27%, the Netherlands 11% and Denmark 10%; the remaining 12% is spread across Germany, Belgium and France.

After mineral resources were found under the North Sea, Norway claimed the rights of the Continental Shelf Convention , which the other states joined. While the division in the northern North Sea was clarified relatively quickly, the division of the southern areas took longer to complete. After protracted disputes and a ruling by the International Court of Justice , the soil was distributed differently between the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark , since otherwise Germany would only have got a very small part of the soil in relation to the coastline due to the shape of its coast.

Although all five funding states are Western democracies, four of them EU members, and they work together in various other international organizations, there has so far been hardly any international cooperation between the governments. It was only in April 2005 that Norway and Great Britain signed a joint agreement that generally governs how oil fields in both sectors are to be treated. Up to now there was a separate contract for each individual case.

The most important oil fields are Ekofisk and Statfjord in the Norwegian sector, in which Troll is also the most important gas field, Brent and Forties in the British sector and Dan and Gorm in the Danish sector.

British sector

In the UK sector, the Department of Trade and Industry issues licenses for individual blocks. The sector is divided into quadrants, each one degree of latitude and one degree of longitude, and divided into 30 smaller blocks, which are 10 minutes of latitude and 12 minutes of longitude. Some blocks are divided into sub-blocks. The government issues licenses at regular (now annual) intervals, and to promote new companies, the government sometimes issues promotional licenses that contain lighter conditions than the normal award.

The UK has chosen an entirely private route to develop its oil and gas reserves. State influence existed only through regulation and traditionally close relationships between the British state and individual actors such as BP.

The British industrial center is in Aberdeen, Scotland . The largest oil terminal in Europe is located in Sullom Voe in the Shetlands.

Norwegian sector

Oil production in the Norwegian sector by oil fields

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate issues licenses in Norway . The basic structure also consists of quadrants of 1 × 1 degree, but the blocks are larger, each with 15 minutes of latitude and 20 minutes of longitude. Rights in the several hundred square kilometer sectors are awarded in rounds. The first took place in 1965, and by 2003 a total of 20 rounds had taken place.

The center of the Norwegian manufacturing industry is in Stavanger ; the first oil company, ironically enough, set up shop in a herring factory that had become unprofitable. In Norway, production is now organized in such a way that the design, construction and construction of the oil platforms are carried out by independent companies, which then hand over the finished oil field to the actual oil producers. In the case of the Gulfaks platform, for example, Statoil put out a total of 1,700 different contracts with specialist companies and played an important coordinating role in the entire development.

Netherlands, Denmark and Germany

Mittelplate is located in the middle of the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park. Photographed from the lake side, in the background the Büsum skyscraper.

The southern foothills of the oil-bearing crevice system extend into the Danish sector. Here there are source rocks from the Upper Jurassic , which have also locally formed reservoirs in the overlying chalk and in sandstone from the Palaeogene . In particular, the supplies contained in layers of chalk are difficult to mine. On the one hand, the rock is not very permeable, on the other hand, it tends to collapse under the external pressure as soon as oil has been withdrawn.

The competent authority for the Danish sector is the Danish Energy Authority. In quadrants of 1 × 1 degree, individual blocks are 10 × 15 minutes in size, which can be further subdivided. While all concessions were awarded to Dansk Undergrunds Consortium until 1998 , the Danish government has since established an "open door policy". Companies can apply for a specific license annually. This initially runs for six years; if the company starts funding during this period, it is extended to 30 years.

Oil production in the Danish sector has been going on since 1972. The production reached its highest level in 2004 with 389 kb / d. Gas production began in 1977 and will peak around 2009. In 2001, the Danish sector produced 37 percent more oil and gas than could be used domestically. It is estimated that this output can be sustained until around 2015. By the end of the 2010s Denmark is likely to become a net importer of energy again.

The Netherlands and Germany have a common field pattern. In contrast to the other sectors, the quadrants here are not designated with numbers but with letters, the size of individual blocks is 10 × 20 minutes.

The main extraction area in the Netherlands consists of deep-lying carbon, which has been converted into gas through a natural coking process . The gas rose and settled in higher layers of rock from the Permian and partly sandstone from the Triassic . Layers of salt from the Permian often closed off the top. Although production began in the largest gas field as early as the late 1950s, production peaked in 1976 and all possible areas were explored early on, the reserves continue to last until 2011. The Dutch governments have followed a policy of slow consumption from the start. The companies produced far less gas than would have been technically and economically possible in order to maintain the stocks longer.

The rock layers that contain gas in the Dutch sector continue further east and are also below Germany. However, these are mainland stocks that have been tapped for a long time. The reserves in the German sector of the North Sea are found in rocks from the Lower Jurassic . These reserves are comparatively small and have no impact on the international oil market. The only German drilling platform for oil is Mittelplate , located off the Schleswig-Holstein coast in the Wadden Sea National Park ; the only gas drilling platform A6 / B4 is further out to sea in the so-called duckbill of the German North Sea sector.

German gas production covers around 20% of domestic demand.

Participating companies

  • Shell-Refinery Hemmingstedt (Germany)

  • Fawley Refinery London (UK)

  • Norwegian Statoil gas station in Poland

  • Statoil Research Center Trondheim (Norway)

The cost of entering the market is very high even for the capital-intensive industry. In the North Sea, almost exclusively transnational corporations work, which can bear the costs for several years before they have any income. The environmental conditions, especially in the northern North Sea, are very demanding, safety and environmental standards in European waters are comparatively high, and the risk of not finding anything is high compared to other oil and gas areas. The average cost of exploratory drilling was £ 3.5 million in 1976, £ 7 million in 1980 and £ 9 million in 1985. The development costs are then again significantly higher. For small oil fields they are around 25 million pounds, for giants like the Brent oil field around 3.5 billion pounds. The sums must be made available a few years before a field produces enough to cover costs and then work at a profit,

Due to the boundary conditions, production operations were relatively concentrated in the heyday of North Sea oil at the end of the 1980s. In 1986 a total of 169 companies held licenses in the British sector alone, only 75 of them actually producing gas or oil. However, half of the total gas production was concentrated in just four companies ( Exxon , Shell, Elf , BGC ), and three companies (BP, Exxon and Shell) shared half of the output in the oil sector.

Two opposing trends have been discernible since the late 1990s: the technical demands on mining work have increased as the fields that are easier to exploit have been developed. Strong financial market constraints and an extremely volatile oil and gas price since the 1990s promote economies of scale and favor players who, due to their size, are more influential in the global market. This promoted concentration processes. On the other hand, the more technically demanding conditions also offer numerous opportunities for highly specialized smaller companies that can occupy certain niches. While numerous smaller companies have been able to establish themselves in the UK sector since 2002, centralization has taken place in the Norwegian sector since 1999. The most important point here was the purchase of Saga Petroleum , by then Norway's third largest oil company, by Statoil and Norsk Hydro , number one and two in the market. In 2007 Statoil finally took over the oil and gas operations from Norsk Hydro, leaving only one major player in the Norwegian oil market.

All major oil companies were involved in the production, but in recent years large oil companies such as Shell and BP have already stopped oil production in the area, and production has been falling steadily since 1999 due to a lack of reserves. In 2004 alone by 10% and in 2005 by a further 12.8%. However, the gas yield is still increasing. Production reached its peak in 1999 when almost 6 million barrels (950,000 m³) of crude oil and 280,000,000 m³ of natural gas were produced daily.

Environmental conditions and infrastructure

  • Oseberg A platform in a storm

  • Shuttle tanker "Gerd Knutsen"

  • Cross section of an offshore oil production system

Oil production in the North Sea is comparatively complex. Although the North Sea is relatively shallow on average, the depths in the north are up to 200 meters and in the Norwegian channel over 500 meters. The weather in the North Sea region places high demands on the material. A dominant high over the Azores and a dominant low over Iceland make the weather unstable. In winter, the average daily maximum wind speed is over 50 km / h, on a quarter of the days over 60 km / h. Hurricane gusts of up to 160 km / h are common, winds over 120 km / h can last for hours and cause 30-meter waves. At the start of production, clear predictions about weather conditions were unclear; Fishermen, knowing the weather conditions, mostly noticed the major winter storms in advance and avoided the high seas at the time. Offshore construction work is only possible in the summer months. The oil and gas reserves are usually several kilometers under the sea floor.

There is only one international pipeline for crude oil in the North Sea. ConocoPhillips' 270-mile Norpipe can transport up to 810,000 barrels per day between the Norwegian Ekofisk field and the oil terminal and refinery in Teesside , England.

The gas network is much more extensive. From the Norwegian drilling rigs alone there are 8,000 kilometers of gas pipeline in the sea, the 716 kilometer long European pipeline has led directly to Emden, Germany, since 1977.

Impact on the environment

Memorial to the Piper Alpha disaster

The environmental impact of oil and gas production manifests itself in two different forms. On the one hand there is strong, but temporary pollution, such as that caused by isolated disasters, on the other hand there are long-term effects. In quantitative terms, these are significantly lower than the actual consequences of a catastrophe, but some of them last for decades.

Oil islands on the North Sea caused major environmental pollution twice. In April 1977, 22,000 tons of oil flowed from the Norwegian Bravo Island off the coast of Stavanger. In 1988, the explosion and the subsequent fire on the Piper Alpha oil rig not only killed 167 workers, but also caused serious environmental damage. The oil tanker Braer sank off Shetland in 1993, but the sea was so heavy that the swell distributed the oil so thoroughly in the water that only minimal environmental damage could be detected.

Every year around 9,000 tons of oil are released into the sea. It gets there either through leaks in the conveyor systems or through contamination in the manufacturing process, in which seawater is also pumped and cleaned and returned to the sea. The amount is therefore probably considerably below that which is illegally dumped into the sea by ships; The oil spills that threaten seabirds on the coasts seldom come from drilling rigs because they are too far away from the coast, the oil is already spreading to the coast or sinks to the seabed.

In sedimentary organic materials and hydrocarbons accumulate on by onshore and offshore activities. The biomass in benthos has increased significantly in the past few decades in the vicinity of the oil operations.

meaning

The economic importance of North Sea oil fluctuates greatly, as it depends on the volatile oil prices as well as on the production volume. The production only became profitable with the oil price shock in 1973, especially in the early 1980s, high oil prices and large yields came together in the North Sea. Norway's state revenue alone rose from just under 19 billion Norwegian kroner in 1980 to 47 billion Norwegian kroner in 1985. All of the country's problems - economic, political or economic - seemed to be solvable through the oil revenues, an attitude that was unrealistic in itself and also through falling production volumes and - prices has been disillusioned since the mid-1990s. The developed reserves continued to decline in the 21st century, but the sharp rise in prices has made it more profitable for companies and governments to invest in the North Sea and the continental shelf in recent years. In comparison, the production costs for a barrel of North Sea oil are between 12 and 15 US dollars, for a barrel of on-shore produced oil in Europe around 5 US dollars and in the Middle East only 2 US dollars per barrel.

Norway

Stavanger Oil Museum

Since the first natural gas discoveries in the North Sea in the late 1950s, the Norwegian parliament passed relatively restrictive laws on exploration and oil production in order to avoid negative effects of oil production on the other economic sectors. After it became clear in the early 1970s that oil - and later gas - could become a dominant factor in the Norwegian economy, the state decided to intervene directly as a player. The two largest oil companies, Statoil and Norsk Hydro, were completely state-owned for several decades and dominated production in the Norwegian sector. It was not until 2001 that Storting decided to sell part of Statoil to international companies. In 2002 Statoil sold part of its crude oil stocks to a Danish company in order to invest the money in areas other than the North Sea.

The largest Norwegian oil company is Statoil . Government efforts to support a domestic oil sector have created numerous companies involved in the oil production process. In Norway itself around 600 companies are involved in oil and gas production. At the turn of the millennium, these held around 60 percent of the entire domestic market for all services in the field of oil production. Some of these companies are now important players in their sector in the world market. So Aker Solutions is a globally active logistics company for offshore oil fields, while Petroleum Geo-Services is the world's largest "seismic acquisition and processing company".

United Kingdom

The oil discoveries in the United Kingdom came at a time when the British economy was switching from coal to oil as the main energy source. While - domestic - coal still dominated the energy market in the 1950s, imported coal prevailed until the 1970s. Great Britain, which in the 1950s still covered 90% of its primary energy needs itself, only achieved 50% 20 years later. Only increasing oil production ensured that, mathematically, in 1980/81 complete energy autonomy was achieved again; in 1985 the country produced 15% more energy than it needed itself. At the peak of British oil production in 1984, North Sea oil contributed 7% to total GDP, and from the late 1980s to the turn of the millennium it stabilized at around 2 to 2.5% of GDP. In 1998 some 350,000 jobs in the UK were directly and indirectly linked to oil.

The impact of the oil discoveries was particularly evident in Scotland , off whose coast most of the large oil fields are located. The oil discoveries there gave support to the autonomy movement. The Scottish economy was in decline in the 1960s, and a strong argument against Scottish independence was that Scotland would not be economically viable on its own. That changed with the oil discoveries, which were mainly east and north of the Scottish coast in the British sector. Most of the jobs in the oil industry were created in Scotland, which has performed better economically than the rest of the UK since the 1970s. In Scotland itself, industry and the associated administration are mainly located in the greater Aberdeen area.

The Scottish National Party went to the polls with the slogan It's Scotland's oil , calculated that 90% of British oil would be in the "Scottish sector", that Scotland would become one of the richest countries in Europe with its oil revenues and accused the British government of having the revenues especially for “white elephants” in England (third London airport, Canal Tunnel, Concorde) etc. The UK government argued, in line with international law, that there were no sub-national sectors in the law of the sea, and consequently no Scottish sector, but that oil and its revenues belonged to the UK as a whole. The election result of the SNP, which in 1964 still had 64,044 votes, rose to 839,628 by the October 1974 election.

Netherlands, Denmark

Troll A

Denmark suffered massively from the 1973 oil crisis, when 93% of all oil consumed by Denmark came from the Middle East. The discoveries of oil and gas in the Danish sector of the North Sea have changed that. In 1980 Denmark was able to produce 5% of the energy it needs itself, in 1990 this rate was 52%, and the country has been producing all the oil and gas it needs itself since 1991. Denmark has been completely energy-efficient since the end of the 1990s and in 2001 it was producing the country already consumed 37% more energy than it was using. The third net exporter is Denmark. Its concessions were completely and since then mainly in the hands of the Dansk Undergrunds Consortium consisting of AP Møller-Mærsk , Royal Dutch Shell and Texaco . The pipelines are operated exclusively by the state-owned company DONG .

The effects on the Dutch economy were ambivalent: on the one hand, the country was energy-independent for a long time and a net exporter of energy, on the other hand, there were also negative effects. This phenomenon, known as the Dutch disease , affects resource-rich countries and has been thoroughly researched for the first time using the Dutch example of natural gas: the income that can be generated with one raw material causes lasting damage to other economic sectors. The value of an oil or gas state's currency increases so much that industrial exports often become unprofitable and industry is affected. The wages paid in the oil sector are higher than industrial or service wages, so that there can also be a shortage of workers. In addition, economies that are designed to export raw materials often place little value on education: the jobs in the raw materials sector are usually physically demanding, but require little education. The small number of highly qualified jobs can easily be filled with imported workers from other countries.

Effects on the world market

The North Sea is the most important oil and gas area discovered since World War II. Nevertheless, the total supply in the North Sea would only be sufficient to supply world consumption of crude oil for about three years. Most of Europe's crude oil and natural gas reserves are located in the North Sea; the region is one of the most important oil production regions outside of OPEC and one of the largest offshore production regions worldwide .

The price of Brent, one of the first types of oil produced in the North Sea, is now used as the standard and comparative price for crude oil from Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The price is on average around 10% above the basket price for crude oil. On the one hand, the comparatively high quality of the North Sea oil contributes to this (comparatively light and with a low proportion of hydrogen sulfide ), as well as the short and therefore inexpensive transport routes to the important European market.

literature

  • Jerome D. Davis: The Changing World of Oil: An Analysis of Corporate Change and Adaptation . Ashgate Publishing, 2006, ISBN 0-7546-4178-3 .
  • Merja-Liisa Hinkkanen-Lievonen, David Kirby: The Baltic and the North Seas . Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-13282-7 .
  • Roland Löffler: Source of billions in the Wadden Sea - Offshore production of oil and gas. Parliament, No. 25/2006. (online) .
  • PA Ziegler (1975) Oil and Gas Provinces of the North Sea. Erdöl-Erdgas-Zeitschrift, 91, pp. 207-217, hdl : 10013 / epic.43526.d001 .
  • Schöneich, Hubertus (1988) Oil and Natural Gas in Northern Western Europe. The Earth Sciences; 6, 12; 365–376, doi: 10.2312 / geosciences . 1988.6.365 .

Web links

Commons : Oil and gas platforms in the North Sea  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ a b J. RV Brooks et al. a .: Hydrocarbon Exploration Opportunities in the Twenty-First Century in the United Kingdom. In: Marlan W. Downey et al. a. (Ed.): Petroleum provinces of the twenty-first century , AAPG, 2001, ISBN 0-89181-355-1 , pp. 170-175.
  2. ^ NH Woodcock, Robin A. Strachan: Geological history of Britain and Ireland Wiley-Blackwell, 2000, ISBN 0-632-03656-7 , pp. 381-382.
  3. ^ A b C. J. Campbell, Siobhan Heapes: An Atlas of Oil and Gas Depletion. Jeremy Mills Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-906600-26-6 , p. 5.
  4. ↑ Joseph Hilyard (Ed.): 2008 International Petroleum Encyclopedia. PennWell Books, 2008, ISBN 978-1-59370-164-2 , p. 339.
  5. ^ A b c d e f C. J. Campbell, Siobhan Heapes: An Atlas of Oil and Gas Depletion. Jeremy Mills Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-906600-26-6 , pp. 169-175.
  6. ↑ a b c d P. S. Johnson: The Structure of British Industry. Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-203-01376-X , pp. 28-30.
  7. ^ A b Toyin Falola, Ann Genova: The politics of the global oil industry: an introduction. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, ISBN 0-275-98400-1 , pp. 56-57.
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g Davis pp. 72-75.
  9. ↑ Chart
  10. ↑ Craig B. Smith: Extreme waves . National Academies Press, 2006, ISBN 0-309-10062-3 , p. 206.
  11. ↑ a b Øystein Noring: Liberalization, Integration and Specialization: The Restructuring of the European Oil Industry. In: Davis pp. 123-126.
  12. ^ A b Energy Information Administration: Country Analysis Briefs - North Sea, January 2007
  13. ↑ a b c Löffler
  14. ↑ Kenneth Green et al. a .: Technology, knowledge and the firm: implications for strategy and industrial change Edward Elgar Publishing, 2005, ISBN 1-84376-877-1 .
  15. ↑ a b Toyin Falola , Ann Genova: The politics of the global oil industry: an introduction Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, ISBN 0-275-98400-1 , pp. 204-205.
  16. ^ Demolition of oil platforms. It will be expensive . In: Tagesschau.de , February 18, 2017. Retrieved April 27, 2017.
  17. ↑ International Court of Justice: Case Summary North Sea Continental Shelf Cases, Judgment of 20 February 1969 ( Memento of October 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive )
  18. ^ Energy Information Administration: Country Analysis Briefs - North Sea , January 2007
  19. ↑ JRV Brooks et al. a .: Hydrocarbon Exploration Opportunities in the Twenty-First Century in the United Kingdom. In: Marlan W. Downey et al. a. (Ed.): Petroleum provinces of the twenty-first century. AAPG, 2001, ISBN 0-89181-355-1 , pp. 168-170.
  20. ↑ a b Davis pp. 78-80.
  21. ↑ a b Anita Rønne: Energy Security as Denmark's Heavy-Handed Regulation Loosens. In: Barry Barton (Ed.): Energy security: managing risk in a dynamic legal and regulatory environment. Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 0-19-927161-5 , pp. 253-256.
  22. ^ CJ Campbell, Siobhan Heapes: An Atlas of Oil and Gas Depletion. Jeremy Mills Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-906600-26-6 , pp. 185-190.
  23. ^ CJ Campbell, Siobhan Heapes: An Atlas of Oil and Gas Depletion. Jeremy Mills Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-906600-26-6 , p. 177.
  24. ↑ a b c d P. S. Johnson: The Structure of British Industry . Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-203-01376-X , pp. 28-30, pp. 33-36.
  25. ↑ Tamás Farkas: The Investor's Guide to the Energy Revolution. Lulu.com, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4092-0285-1 .
  26. ↑ The Independent on the subject  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / news.independent.co.uk  
  27. ↑ For a graphic see the pages of the Hamburger Bildungsserver , for one see the Subsea Oil and Gas Directory .
  28. ↑ SM Bakke, SA Nøland: General trends in the soft bottom environment of the Ekofisk region, Norwegian sector. In: CA Brebbia, JS Antunes do Carmo (ed.): Water pollution VIII: modeling, monitoring and management. WIT Press, 2006, ISBN 1-84564-042-X , pp. 55-57.
  29. ↑ Toyin Falola, Ann Genova: The politics of the global oil industry: an introduction. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, ISBN 0-275-98400-1 , pp. 157-158.
  30. ^ A b Vince Gardiner, Michael Hugh Matthews: The changing geography of the United Kingdom. Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-17901-7 , pp. 50-54.
  31. ^ Peter Dorey: British Politics Since 1945. Blackwell, Oxford 1995, ISBN 0-631-19075-9 .