28-05-08

Britain granted licenses for two North Sea oil fields, attempting to help stabilize global energy markets by encouraging major oil producers to drill.
John Hutton, Britain's business and enterprise secretary, authorized the new oil field developments and said there are plans to help companies extract crude from previously unprofitable sections of about 30 existing fields.

The decision was announced after talks in Aberdeen, Scotland, between Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Treasury chief Alistair Darling and members of Oil & Gas UK, a trade body for companies operating in the North Sea.
The two new fields have an estimated total output of 50 mm barrels, and additional daily production in the existing fields could produce up to 20,000 extra bpd, Hutton's ministry said. It said the new fields will be operated by Petrofac Energy Developments and that production will start in the first half of next year.

"For four decades we have produced huge amounts of oil and gas from the North Sea," Brownsaid in Scotland. "The issue for us is how we can maintain supply in the next few years -- how we can use what everybody recognizes are very substantial reserves still available in the North Sea."
The British leader said the 13-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries should also increase production to help lower skyrocketing fuel prices. Brown's office, however, said the prime minister did not support a proposal from French President Nicolas Sarkozy to cut fuel taxes across Europe.

Hundreds of trucks blocked off a highway in London to protest the soaring cost of fuel in Britain -- where diesel now costs more than more than $ 9 a gallon. A delegation of drivers handed a letter to Brown's Downing Street office calling for a cut in fuel taxes for trucking companies.
Brown insisted the best long-term solution is to become a low-carbon economy. He said all countries must reduce their dependence on fossil fuels and reduce consumption. He said spiralling fuel costs should top the agenda at a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in June.

"The cause of rising prices is clear: growing demand and too little supply to meet it both now and -- perhaps of even greater significance -- in the future," Brown said. "Our goal that Britain becomes a low-carbon economy is now an economic priority as well as an environmental imperative."
Brown also said Britain plans to build one of the world's first commercial-scale carbon capture and storage coal plants. Carbon capture is an experimental technology meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by locking dangerous gases deep in the earth.

Source: www.forbes.com / Associated Press