North Sea oil refers to oil and natural gas (hydrocarbons) produced from reservoirs beneath the North Sea.
North Sea oil was discovered in the early 1960s, with the first North Sea oil coming on line in 1971 and being piped ashore at Teesside, England, from 1975, but the fields were not intensively exploited until rising oil prices in the 1980s made exploitation economically feasible. Inaccessibility and dangerous conditions at the floating offshore rigs require complex and expensive production methods.
The North Sea contains the majority of Europe's oil reserves and is one of the largest non-OPEC producing regions in the world. While most reserves lie beneath waters belonging to the United Kingdom and Norway, some fields belong to Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Most major oil companies have investments in the North Sea. Peaking in 1999, production of North Sea oil was nearly 6 million barrels (950,000 m³) per day. Natural gas production was nearly 10 trillion cubic feet (280,000,000 m³) in 2001 and continues to increase.
Brent crude (one of the earliest crude oils produced in the North Sea) is still used today as a standard reference for pricing oil.
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