Det kan være 20 prosent mer olje i Nordsjøen enn antatt. Verdens oljereserver er i det hele tatt undervurdert. Kanskje med så mye som 100 prosent, mener en oljeekspert.

Konvensjonell oppfatning er at Storbritannias utvinning er på hell, men ekspertene tror at ny teknologi henter ut mer, og billigere og mer effektive løsninger som gjør små funn drivverdige, kan gjøre skamme på denne oppfatningen.

Since the discovery of oil in the North Sea, the equivalent of 37billion barrels of oil have been extracted from the UK Continental Shelf, leaving up to 25.5billion barrels still to be recovered. However, industry experts believe that the remaining reserves exceed current estimates by as much as a fifth.

New technology and the rising price of oil mean that it is now economically viable to drill fields once considered too difficult or too remote.

Richard Pike, chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, argued in Petroleum Review this month that true proven reserves for the world may be nearly twice the conventional figure. Mr Pike said that the current industry practice of reporting proven reserves alone was purely an historic convention that bore little relevance to what was actually produced.

North Sea may be set for second oil boom