UK gas production drops
OFFICIAL figures have shown that gas production in the North Sea has plummeted by 25 per cent just months after the Treasury’s £10bn tax raid on companies with facilities in the sea.
The news is a worrying sign of an acceleration in the decline of the UK’s “indigenous” energy production.
The figures show that the slump outstripped a slowdown in demand: overall consumption fell 17.3 per cent.
Some of the drop in gas production was countered by a rise in renewable energy use. Renewables supplied 50 per cent more energy than during the same period last year, taking them from 6.3 per cent of Britain’s total consumption to 9.6 per cent.
Nuclear energy also gained significantly, with its share of the UK’s energy mix rising from 15 per cent to a fifth in the second quarter of this year. That equated to a 38 per cent increase in production.