North Sea oil

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North Sea oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons, comprising liquid petroleum and natural gas, produced from petroleum reservoirs beneath the North Sea.

In the petroleum industry, the term "North Sea" often includes areas such as the Norwegian Sea and the area known as "West of Shetland", "the Atlantic Frontier" or "the Atlantic Margin" that is not geographically part of the North Sea.

Brent crude is still used today as a standard benchmark for pricing oil, although the contract now refers to a blend of oils from fields in the northern North Sea.

From the 1960s to 2014 it was reported that 42 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) had been extracted from the North Sea since when production began. As there is still an estimated 24 billion BOE potentially remaining in the reservoir (equivalent to about 35 years worth of production), the North Sea will remain as an important petroleum reservoir for years to come.^[1][2] However, this is the upper end of a range of estimates provided by Sir Ian Wood (commissioned by the UK government to carry out a review of the oil industry in the United Kingdom^[3] ); the lower end was 12 billion barrels. Wood, upset with how his figures were being used, said the most likely amount to be found would be between 15 billion and 16 billion barrels.^[4]