North Sea Oil’s Rapid Decline

Fast shrinking North Sea oil production has caught even the Treasurys forecasters wrong-footed says Brian Durrant of The Fleet Street Letter…but theyre part of the problem…

Below are extracts of the minutes of a Treasury Select Committee meeting on 13 December 2006 where Michael Fallon MP (Conservative, Sevenoaks) asks the Chancellor about his the shortfall in North Sea Oil receipts.

Mr Fallon: “But your own forecast was that you would receive over


Mr Brown: “Mr Fallon, I think we have been round this course long enough to know that, if production falls in the North Sea that is not the fault of the Treasury.”

Or is it? Just before Gordon Brown