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The North Sea has almost as much oil left as has already been extracted, a BBC Scotland investigation has been told.

Experts believe between 25 and 30 billion barrels could still be recovered over the next 40 years. ...
Sir Bernard Ingham, who was press secretary in the Department of Energy when North Sea oil came ashore, admitted that government negotiations with the oil companies always boiled down to the same thing - taxation.

As he put it: "The whole political calculation is how much brass can you get out of North Sea oil without driving the oil companies away."

The one thing that I did not expect to find in my investigation was that the proven reserves on some of the region's oldest fields are in fact rising.
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He said: "Forties was definitely showing her age when Apache took it. At the time when it was sold, pre-developed reserved were in the region of 150 million barrels. We ended last year with 200 million barrels on our books."
...
Canadian oil exploration company Oilexco last year drilled 39 out of 140 exploration and appraisal wells in the North Sea, despite rising costs.

Its chief executive officer, Arthur Millholland, said "In 2004 we were paying approximately $55,000 a day for a drilling rig.
"Today we're paying $350,000 a day. So even though the price of oil today is higher than it was in 2004, our costs of doing business here have increased just as dramatically."

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