Your Royal Highness,
Chairman Lord Broers,
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Thank you for your kind words of welcome.
I know, Your Royal Highness, that as a Senior Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering you follow technology development in the North Sea with great interest. As you know, I share this interest with you.
Chairman Lord Broers,
Let us remind ourselves that oil and gas were discovered in the North Sea only some 40 years ago. This led to great optimism on both sides of the North Sea. All of a sudden, a new era started in a sea basin we have shared as seafaring nations for centuries.
For Norway and the United Kingdom, petroleum has been, and will continue to be, a source of wealth and prosperity. We should all be grateful for this.
The discovery of oil and gas has presented us with a number of new challenges. We have, however, found good political solutions and achieved major technical results in a spirit of co-operation. The question of delimitation of the continental shelf was resolved at an early stage. The last element to fall into place was the signing of a treaty in April this year, which will cover all new cross-boundary oil and gas projects that are not covered by existing agreements. The way in which these issues have been solved can serve as an example for other nations.
In 2006-2007 a new pipeline from Norway to the United Kingdom will be completed. It will have the capacity to supply up to 20 per cent of the gas consumed each year in the United Kingdom.
Today it is appropriate to recall the technological challenges we have faced in connection with the exploration and production of oil and gas in the North Sea. We have managed to overcome these challenges to the benefit of both Britain and Norway. Our offshore-related industries are today among the most advanced in the world.
I am pleased to say that we still have large resources that we expect to develop. The North Sea continues to be a major area of offshore activity, and both countries have recently completed successful licensing rounds.
New technology will make it possible to extract more oil and gas from deposits that only a few years ago could not be exploited. Furthermore, new technological advances will make it possible to make new discoveries and safely develop fields where geology and rough waters have stopped us so far. The North Sea has been, and will continue to be, an extraordinary laboratory for developing world class technologies for the oil and gas industry, technologies which today are much in demand.
Chairman Lord Broers,
I wish you all a successful conference, and hope it will strengthen co-operation between our two countries in the energy sector. I am confident it will be stimulating and rewarding for the participants, and we are looking forward to hearing what challenges and opportunities the experts gathered here today envisage for our industries.
Thank you
