The Long Goodbye

High oil prices have helped slow the North Sea’s decline. Government flip-flopping could accelerate it again

NOBODY disputes that Britain’s part of the North Sea is past its prime. Oil and gas production peaked at 4.5m barrels a day in 1999 and has fallen steadily ever since, to 3.3m now (see chart). Yet in Aberdeen, Britain’s main oil town, talk of an old
The Economist