Exploration peaked with 80 … However, the discovery of gas at Groningen in the Netherlands in 1959 caused people to revise … You may ask where the oil originated from and Technology, finance, organizational bodies - both bureaucratic and private - political change and development … This is a survey of the essentially disastrous handling of North Sea oil - stocks and revenue squandered - and the implications for Scotland and the rest of Britain. In the late 1950s, very few people believed that the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) might conceal rich oil and gas deposits. History 1851–1963. It was not until during the 1960s that purposeful endeavors were made to see whether there were any significant oil stores in the North Sea. Norway’s oil history in 5 minutes. Some 40 billion barrels of oil equivalent were milked from the North Sea between the 1960s and the opening decades of the 21st century. Becoming the centre of public debate during the 2014 Scottish referendum, the North Sea oil forms a crucial chapter in Scottish history. Written by an industry insider, a combination of lightly technical explanation and anecdotal accounts explore the process of developing new oil fields and oil production. The oil majors were awash with cash – and grossly inefficient in how they spent it. World oil prices for 1973–4 were vastly increased by OPEC, making high North Sea production costs viable. The North Sea Basin covers and area of 625,000 km2 and is lies north of the Netherlands and in between Norway and Great Britain. The North Sea proved to be a new frontier for the oil companies when they first arrived. The oil business in the United Kingdom is generally later. North Sea Brent crude is a blended light sweet crude oil recovered from the North Sea in the early 1960s. In the north it is bounded by the continental shelf edge. Commercial extraction of oil on the shores of the North Sea dates back to 1851, when James Young retorted oil from torbanite (boghead coal, or … The North Sea oil boom of the late 20th century benefited Aberdeen more than any other city of Scotland, bringing more than 200 new companies and thousands of new foreign residents and financing the construction of housing, offices, and schools. Since the first licences were issued for the extraction of oil and gas from the North Sea in 1964, about 42 billion barrels of oil have been produced. The North Sea itself is moderately shallow which made it less testing to do the overviews. No oil came ashore until the infrastructure of connecting pipelines and terminal facilities was completed – Cruden Bay in Aberdeenshire received the first North Sea oil in 1975. A new documentary is being made by a Bafta winner on how the 70s oil boom transformed the fate of a small village in the Highlands. History 1851–1963. 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