Oil & Gas

What is the oil and gas industry?

The UK oil and gas industry is Britain's greatest industrial success story in the last 50 years.

Oil and gas provide energy and essential chemicals for our transport, industry and homes, and earn valuable tax and export revenues to support the British economy, The figures tell their own story - the UK offshore oil and gas industry:

•provides three quarters of the UK's primary energy.

•provides employment for 380,000 people.

•has invested £ 150 billion over the last 25 years.

•has paid £ 150 billion in taxes since the 1970s.

•adds £4 billion a year to balance of payments.

•accounts for one-fifth of UK annual investment.

Working in the oil and gas industry

Britain has been self-sufficient in oil and gas for the last 17 years. Today new technology is employed to reduce the cost of finding and producing oil and gas, and to give the fields a longer productive life.

Current forecasts predict that Britain can expect to remain self-sufficient in oil for at least another 10 years, and

self sufficient in gas well into this century. Over the next 25 years, the industry expects to make 130 new discoveries, and 240 new developments.

The UK oil and gas industry is located mainly off the east coast of Scotland and England, but fields have also been developed in the Irish Sea, west of the Shetland Islands, and in the English Channel. About 18,000 people work offshore on a regular basis on fixed production platforms, mobile drilling rigs, or floating production storage and offloading units (FPS0s).

What are offshore installations?

Oil and gas offshore installations are industrial towns at sea, carrying the personnel and equipment needed to access reservoirs thousands of feet below the seabed, and maintain continuous hydrocarbon production. The most important functions are drilling, preparing water or gas for injection into the reservoir, processing the oil and gas before sending it ashore, and cleaning the produced water for disposal into the sea.

Big fixed platforms may have all these functions in one location, but smaller platforms may be dedicated to just one function, such as drilling or gas compression. Some installations can be moved from one location to another, for example mobile drilling rigs and production FPSOs.

What are onshore installations?

These are installations on land and usually close to the sea which receive oil and gas from offshore installations via pipeline (or in the case of oil sometimes by tanker). These installations prepare the liquid products for further refining - but they are not the refineries. They also take the natural gas and make it suitable for piping into the National Grid. At some installations gas liquids are processed.

please send CV's or vacancy details to lyndsay@a1recruitment.org.uk