Ever since the McCrone Report was produced in the early 1970s (then classified as a state secret for over thirty years) the oil has been due to run out in ten years. Forties was only "expected" to last for about ten years back then but, nearly fifty years after it was discovered, its current operator expects it to last another forty years. All oil fields suffer from diminishing production rates as initial pressures drop. Operators need to keep investing in them to keep production levels up. Techniques include drilling additional wells and injecting fluids into the reservoir to force the oil out. If no further investments are made then the field will run out sooner rather than later.
When fields are first discovered, estimates of economically recoverable oil are sometimes as low as 10% of the oil originally in place. The oil originally in place estimates are often very low too. It's not unusual for the initial estimates of oil originally in place to increase by several orders of magnitude. The figures for the Shiehallion Field, Forties Field and Greater Clair area, for example, have been massively increased since they were first discovered. The industry is notoriously conservative in estimating recoverable reserves as Forties demonstrates. With the latest extraction techniques, 80% or more of the oil originally in place can sometimes be recovered. The bigger the reservoir, the more economic it becomes to maximise recovery of the oil initially in place.
The Greater Clair area and Greater Lancaster contain far more oil originally in place than Forties and Brent did at their equivalent stage of development. Part of the reason that BP's cost of production is heading below $12 per barrel is because of the Schiehallion and adjacent fields coming back on-screen post-upgrade and the latest phase of the Clair field, Clair Ridge, coming on stream next year.
Greater Lancaster is unlikely to reach full field development until the mid 2020s unless a farm-out to a major oil company is achieved soon. The section of the Rona Ridge between Clair and Lancaster is about to be explored (by Shell, I think) and expectations are high that it will resemble Clair and Lancaster and thus contain enormous reserves by UK standards. A field west of Lewis was discovered some time ago that contains huge amounts of oil but the absence of infrastructure on Lewis, the distance to Shetland and the much easier pickings close to Shetland means that it's unlikely to be developed for a very long time. There are plenty more examples of Scotland's oil potential but none of these are included in industry estimates because they haven't been adequately assessed.
The research referenced in the P&J is, at best, very misleading. We have to ask who funded it and what their motivation was. We have a saying in Scotland; "He who pays the piper calls the tunes". By talking down the future potential, oil companies can keep downwards pressure on the supply chain costs and Westminster can continue the tactics that began with the McCrone Report. This report could also be used to justify fracking.
Last edited by Porrohman; 20th Sep 2017 at 13:10.