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The SeaofLost Opportunity
HANDBOOK OF PETROLEUM EXPLORATION
AND PRODUCTION
7
Series Editor
JOHN CUBITT
Previous volumes in the series:
Volume 1 Operational Aspects of Oil and Gas Well Testing
Volume 2 Statistics for Petroleum Engineers and Geoscientists
Volume 3 Well Test Analysis
Volume 4 A Generalized Approach to Primary Hydrocarbon
Recovery of Petroleum Exploration and Production
Volume 5 Deep-Water Processes and Facies Models: Implications for
Sandstone Petroleum Reservoirs
Volume 6 Stratigraphic Reservoir Characterization for Petroleum
Geologists, Geophysicists, and Engineers
HANDBOOK OF PETROLEUM EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION, 7
The Seaof Lost
Opportunity
North Sea Oil and Gas, British Industry
and the Offshore Supplies Office
Norman J. Smith
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
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ISBN: 978-0-444-53645-7
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Printed and bound in Great Britain
1112131410987654321
For my wife and family, who saw so little of me for so many years.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of Tables ix
List of Charts x
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Preface xv
1. In Europe’s Sick Bay: Britain before North Sea Oil 1
1.1 The British Balance of Payments Problem 2
1.2 Oil and the Balance of Payments 4
1.3 British Economic and Industrial Decline 10
1.4 An Insufficient Inheritance: The British Oilfield
Supply Industry 19
2. The Genesis ofthe North Sea Oil and Gas Industry 23
2.1 The Move to the North Sea 24
2.2 The Technological ‘State ofthe Art’ 26
2.3 The United Kingdom Position 36
2.4 Potential European Competitors 50
2.5 Perceptions ofthe UKCS Hydrocarbon
Resource Base 53
2.6 The New Technical Challenges ofthe North Sea 56
3. Motivations and Constraints 61
3.1 The Exploration and Production Companies 61
3.2 The British Government 69
3.3 British Industry 80
3.4 Finance 85
4. Before OSO: Offshore Supplies 1963–1972 93
4.1 Oil Company Attitudes to British Suppliers 94
4.2 Government Attitudes to British Suppliers 97
4.3 The IMEG Report 98
4.4 An Assessment ofthe Period 100
vii
5. OSO’s Formative Years 1973–1980 109
5.1 The Course of Demand 110
5.2 OSO Operations in Context 111
5.3 OSO and the Machinery of Government 114
5.4 Some Key OSO Issues ofthe Period 117
5.5 The Supply Industry 141
6. OSO’s Long March into History 1981–1993 169
6.1 The Course of Demand 173
6.2 OSO Operations in Context 174
6.3 Some Key OSO Issues ofthe Period 175
6.4 The Supply Industry 186
7. Assessing OSO 203
7.1 Third-Party Commentary 203
7.2 One Insider’s View 208
7.3 OSO’s Statistics 212
7.4 A Summing-Up 215
8. Case Studies and Expert Testimony 219
8.1 Market Segment Case Studies 219
8.2 Corporate Case Studies 225
8.3 Expert Testimony 238
9. Looking Back on a 30-Year Journey 247
9.1 Some Propositions 247
9.2 Some Conclusions 253
9.3 Could it have been otherwise? 256
10. Postscript 265
10.1 The UKCS Oil and Gas Industry and its Supply Sector today 266
10.2 What ofthe Future? 274
Source Materials 283
Glossary 293
Index 301
Contentsviii
List of Tables
CHAPTER 1
Table 1.1 UK Oil Trade 1964–1974 (Money ofthe Day) 5
Table 1.2 Summary of Potential Balance of Payments Effects
from North Sea Oil (or Oil and Gas) for 1980 (£ billion) 7
Table 1.3 Excess Costs and Programme Delays in Major UK Projects
(Late 1950s to Late 1960s) 15
Table 1.4 Attributed Causes of Delay in Construction of Large
Industrial Sites 16
CHAPTER 2
Table 2.1 Some Key Offshore Innovations 1949–1963 34
CHAPTER 3
Table 3.1 Important Offshore Legislation 1964–1978 68
Table 3.2 Relative Weight of Factors Influencing Government Policy 79
CHAPTER 5
Table 5.1 UK–U.S. Joint Ventures with Probable OSO Involvement 149
Table 5.2 Some Early British Offshore Champions and Entrepreneurs 154
Table 5.3 Companies Founded by Former Vickers Personnel During
the 1970s and 1980s 168
CHAPTER 7
Table 7.1 Policies Employed in the UK, Norway, and France and
Their Beneficiaries 206
CHAPTER 8
Table 8.1 Public Sector Group’s View ofthe Main Constraints Faced
by British New Entrants to the Offshore Service
and Supply Sector 240
Table 8.2 Private Sector Group’s View ofthe Main Constraints
Faced by British New Entrants to the Offshore Service
and Supply Sector 241
Table 8.3 Opinions on British Government Support Policies for
the Offshore Indus try 242
CHAPTER 10
Table 10.1 Some Post-1998 Initiatives 269
Table 10.2 Recent Foreign Takeovers of British Private Firms with
Proprietary Technology and/or Strategic Market Positions 275
ix
[...]... Although the improvement in the balance of payments permitted the reversal ofthe ‘stop’ measures and the resumption of ‘go’, the cycle reduced the long-term rate of economic growth and the productive potential ofthe UK because, in the view of Pollard (1984), the reduction of demand during ‘stop’ phases bore particularly hard on investment expenditure Pollard saw the origins ofthe ‘stop–go’ cycle in the. .. Appreciating the circumstances and perceptions ofthe time offers the prospect of an insight into the mind-sets of those who made the policy decisions 50 or so years ago When the offshore industry reached the United Kingdom (UK) in the 1960s, the country already had a well-developed industrial base and much prior experience in the exploitation of oil and gas It was the domicile of some ofthe world’s... in particular, the Queen Mother at the University of Aberdeen, the Templeman at the University of Kent, the London Business School, the Energy Institute, and the British Library In all cases, the staff gave freely of their time and expertise The same is also true ofthe staff at The National Archives, the BP Archive, Lloyds Register, and UKOOA (now Oil and Gas UK) where much of my research was conducted... balance of payments Treasury (1976) attempted to estimate ofthe potential balance of payments benefits of both oil and gas production It was at pains to emphasise the complexity ofthe undertaking and the imprecision ofthe results Given the particular caveats and assumptions employed, the resultant estimates showed the maximum balance of payments effect of North Sea oil Another estimate ofthe potential... an interest in the balance of payments effects ofthe North Sea, and as time passed these would increasingly reflect history as well as forecasts In early 1982, the Bank of England published a wide-ranging review ofthe implications ofthe development ofthe North Sea to the UK economy – see Bank of England (1982) As well as addressing the balance of payments, again pointing out that the results could... difficulties 1.1 THE BRITISH BALANCE OF PAYMENTS PROBLEM In the then world of fixed exchange rates and with the pound sterling still having the status of a reserve currency for many ofthe UK’s former dependencies, the most pressing ofthe constraints faced by British governments was usually the balance of payments The balance of payments was thus commonly perceived as the main ‘driver’ of short-term... effect b 8 TheSeaofLostOpportunity It would have been asking too much ofthe forecasters to have expected them to predict the oil price and the sterling/dollar exchange rate with either accuracy or consistency After the near quadrupling in 1973, the oil price rose slowly in nominal U.S dollar terms for the rest ofthe decade before more than doubling in 1979 and rising somewhat further the following... 1985 While the issue of what exactly to cover remained, the need to make assumptions had become less A discussion ofthe broader implications of North Sea revenues concluded they neither 10 TheSeaofLostOpportunity justified a spending ‘bonanza’ nor necessitated major structural change to the British economy From about 1980 onwards concerns about the balance of payments ceased to pre-occupy the government... North Sea oil found it convenient to ignore some ofthe most intractable issues, such as the future course of oil prices and in particular the effect on the exchange rate and thus on activity in the ‘non-oil economy’ Nevertheless, as the 1970s progressed, the growing number of optimistic projections gave the government good reason to believe that rapid development ofthe resources ofthe North Sea would... some ofthe papers considered above For instance, it stressed that the resource costs of developing North Sea oil were high and that the international oil price rises ofthe 1970s had cost the UK more than it had gained from the discovery and development ofthe North Sea, although that still left the UK better off than other industrialised countries forced to continue to import This was because at the .
HANDBOOK OF PETROLEUM EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION, 7
The Sea of Lost
Opportunity
North Sea Oil and Gas, British Industry
and the Offshore Supplies Office
Norman. Inheritance: The British Oilfield
Supply Industry 19
2. The Genesis of the North Sea Oil and Gas Industry 23
2.1 The Move to the North Sea 24
2.2 The Technological