[NTBKtrader]

http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-23 ... 141704.htm

Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks has confirmed that Britain's oil production from the North Sea has declined by over 30 percent in the last five year.

Crude oil production has fallen from 128 million tons in 1999 to an estimated 88 million tons last year, Wicks told MPs in a written parliamentary reply published Friday.

With UK oil demand varying between 77 to 82 million tons during the past five years, he confirmed that the government still considered that the country would become a net importer on an annual basis by 2010 as was previously forecast in 2003.

[Jack]

I did a little back-of-the-envelope toying with the numbers and it looks to me as if they'll become importers in 2006...

I used a 7.1% annual decline, obtained using a straight line interpolation between 1999 and 2004. So if their usage increases, or the decline accelerates, they could become net importers prior to 2006.

Year Production Decline
1999; 128.0; -
2000; 118.9; 9.1
2001; 110.5; 8.4
2002; 102.6; 7.8
2003; 95.3; 7.3
2004; 88.6; 6.8
2005; 82.3; 6.3
2006 76.4 5.8
2007 71.0 5.4
2008 66.0 5.0

[NTBKtrader]

Thanks Jack, yep their numbers seem to be a little overly optimistic. Does anyone know if the UK has any new production in the pipeline?

[bobbyald]

Not that I'm aware of

and NG goes off a cliff in about 2008.

I expect this, along with higher taxes to cover the lost oil revenues, and a recession caused by higher oil/gas prices is the beginning of the end for our economy.

[pup55]

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic5222-0-asc-0.html

This is what we called awhile back the "Nordic Slide". The 68% figure is about what we had some months ago, so this is governmental confirmation of our data point.

We will have to check Australia, depleting equally rapidly.

It's pretty common for these depletion curves to level out when they reach about 65% of their peak amount, for some reason. The US was able to maintain this level for quite a few years until recently.