UK round could add 17 billion barrels

Close to 17 billion barrels worth of oil could be added to the UK's prospect pool in the next licencing round, which is set to get underway this month.

Coupled with that is the potential for 36 new licences for discoveries which could add 389 million barrels and 1.55 Tcf of gas. Hannon Westwood's 25th Round Screening Study says the round will offer the largest number of blocks for any UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) Licensing Round. They estimate 36 discoveries currently within unlicensed acreage could go up for grabs, with gross unrisked estimated discovery potential reserves of 648 million BOE, including 389 million barrels of oil and 1.55 Tcf of gas. There could be 275 prospects in unlicensed acreage made available, with estimated unrisked prospect potential reserves of 16.6 billion BOE, including 11.8 billion barrels oil and 28.6 Tcf of gas. The potential resource contained in the study compares to a background of total potential UKCS resource in the Hannon Westwood database of about 7,500 million BOE in discoveries and about 50,000 million BOE unrisked, undrilled in exploration prospects in licensed and unlicensed acreage.
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