UK Offers North Sea Oil, Gas Licenses To BP, Shell, Dana, Others

The U.K. government Wednesday said it had offered North Sea oil and gas licenses to BP PLC (BP), ConocoPhillips (COP), ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM), Total SA (TOT), Royal Dutch Shell SA (RDSB) Dana Petroleum PLC (DNX.LN), Apache Corp. (APA) and others following the most recent licensing round.

The government offered a total 144 licenses to various companies to extract oil and gas in 268 blocks in U.K. waters, including the west of Shetlands offshore area. The companies have yet to say formally if they accept the licenses.

"It's encouraging to see the healthy level of interest there is from industry to make the most of the U.K.'s still-substantial resources of oil and gas," said U.K. Energy Minister Charles Hendry.

"Whilst in the long-term, we want to decarbonize our energy system, we have moved swiftly to offer these licenses as we must realize the optimum value from the U.K.'s energy resources and ensure secure energy supplies," he said.

The U.K.'s Department of Energy and Climate Change has decided that 99 further blocks, comprised in 45 prospective licenses, should be subject to more detailed assessments of the likely effects of oil and gas activities on certain protected nature conservation areas.

A decision on whether to grant licenses for these blocks will be subject to the results of the environmental assessments, DECC said.

-By Selina Williams, Dow Jones Newswires [phone]; [e-mail]