United Kingdom
Most UK Natural Gas reserves occur in three distinct areas: 1) associated fields in the UKCS; 2) non-associated fields in the Southern Gas Basin, located adjacent to the Dutch sector of the North Sea; and 3) non-associated fields in the Irish Sea. Since 1997, the UK has been a net exporter of natural gas. However, as is the case with the countrys Oil reserves, most natural gas fields have already reached a high degree of maturity, and the UK government estimates that the country will again become a net importer of natural gas by the end of the decade. Indicative of this trend, the operators of the Interconnector natural gas Pipeline linking the UK and Belgium announced in August 2005 that they would change the flow of the system, exporting gas from the Continent to the UK, rather than importing gas from the UK. In addition, the UK received in 2005 its first shipment of LNG in three decades.
The UK produced 3.6 Tcf of natural gas in 2003, a decrease from the peak of 3.8 Tcf in 2000. The country is the fourth-largest producer of natural gas in the world, behind Russia, the United States, and Canada. The largest concentration of natural gas production in the UK is the Shearwater-Elgin area of the Southern Gas Basin. The area contains five non-associated gas fields, Elgin (Total), Franklin (Total), Halley (Talisman), Scoter (Shell), and Shearwater (Shell). The UK also produces signifigant amounts of associated natural gas from its oil fields in the UKCS. Like the oil industry, smaller independents have been able to acquire some maturing assets from larger operators, who find it difficult to profitably operate these older, declining fields.