UK Energy Firms Urge Gov't to Spur Fresh Investments to Handle Shelf Exploration

The UK offshore oil and gas companies call on the government to stimulate fresh investments in the energy sector amid record-low oil exploration, a new report by Oil & Gas UK revealed on Tuesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The UK government should "vigorously champion" the country's oil and gas industry by encouraging asset sales and bringing more oil companies to invest in the sector in the light of the existing challenges, Deirdre Michie, Oil & Gas UK’s chief executive, was quoted as saying in the report.

"The UKCS [UK Continental Shelf] is in urgent need of fresh investment to boost exploration and drive activity, particularly for the supply chain… Exploration has fallen to record lows and little new investment has been approved in 2016 and 2017 looks no better. Increased asset trading is one area that could free up new investment by facilitating the trading of late-life assets," Deirdre Michie, Oil & Gas UK’s chief executive, was quoted as saying in the report.

The downturn of oil global prices over the last two years has resulted in 30 percent fall in revenues of the UK offshore oil and gas industry and ongoing job losses despite the fact that production went up by 10.4 percent in 2015, which was the first increase in 15 years, according to the report.