North Sea Oil Platforms

North Sea oil refers to oil and natural gas (hydrocarbons) produced from oil reservoirs beneath the North Sea. North Sea oil was discovered in the early 1960s, with the first North Sea oil coming on line in 1971 and being piped ashore at Teesside, England, from 1975, but the fields were not intensively exploited until rising oil prices in the 1980s made exploitation economically feasible. Inaccessibility and dangerous conditions offshore require complex and expensive production methods.
The North Sea contains the majority of Europe's oil reserves and is one of the largest non-OPEC producing regions in the world. Most reserves lie beneath waters belonging to the United Kingdom and Norway.

North Sea oil production fell ten percent in 2004, and fell an additional 12.8% in 2005. This was the largest decrease of any other oil exporting nation in the world, and has led to Britain becoming a net importer of crude for the first time in decades, as recognized by the energy policy of the United Kingdom. The production is expected to fall to one-third from its peak by 2020.
 

vocabulary:

credits:

The text was extracted from Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia under GNU Free Documentation Licence.

Photo of North Sea Oil Platform © Crown copyright