UK oil output falls below 1m barrels

British oil production fell 15.9 per cent year on year in the second quarter, its biggest drop since quarterly records began in 1995, the Department of Energy and Climate Change said yesterday.

"Maintenance and other production issues, alongside the long-term reduction, were the main causes of the decrease," it said. Its figures confirmed that UK oil output dropped below 1 million barrels a day (bpd) for only the second time in more than 30 years this summer as maintenance exacerbated a steep decline in output from depleted North Sea oilfields.

The British sector of the North Sea pumped just 984,000 bpd of oil in June, down from just over 1 million bpd in May and a peak of more than 2.7 million bpd in 1999.