Operators are encouraged to maintain wells in optimal condition to support continued production and strengthen the wider supply chain.

Our latest Wells Insights Report offers a comprehensive overview of UKCS well stock and activity, providing valuable insights into trends and performance across the basin.

Well interventions play a critical role in extending the life of producing assets. By slowing natural production decline and enhancing efficiency, interventions can deliver substantial returns while offering a more sustainable alternative to drilling new wells. They are typically faster, more cost-effective, and result in fewer emissions.

Beyond production benefits, consistent intervention activity also supports the supply chain by ensuring that key equipment and expertise remain in the North Sea. This continuity helps retain a skilled workforce whose transferable capabilities are essential for advancing the UK’s energy transition.

Despite these advantages, well interventions across the UKCS declined from 443 in 2023 to 425 in 2024, continuing a gradual downward trend.

However, the interventions that were carried out demonstrated strong results, delivering 37.5 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in 2024, equivalent to 34 days of average UK production. Efficiency also improved, as intervention costs fell from £11 per barrel in 2023 to £9.60 in 2024, while the average Brent crude price was £63.10 per boe, highlighting healthy profit margins for such activity.

The NSTA’s operational wells team conducted an in-depth review of shut-in and plugged wells, collaborating closely with operators to identify approximately 200 wells with potential for reactivation. In November 2024, the NSTA hosted a workshop with operators and supply chain partners to explore practical solutions for bringing these wells back online. Within just one year, 56 wells had been successfully intervened, contributing more than 8 million boe of production over 12 months. The NSTA’s wells team is now engaging with additional operators to replicate this success and further unlock value from existing assets.

 

Key Findings

  • Well interventions contributed over a month’s worth of production in 2024, despite reduced activity levels.
  • Operators are encouraged to collaborate with the supply chain to unlock cost-efficient production opportunities.
  • The NSTA also urges the industry to prioritise development drilling campaigns within existing fields.

 

Stewardship Expectations

In collaboration with industry, the NSTA has established Stewardship Expectations to guide best practice across the oil and gas lifecycle. The following are particularly relevant to well management:

  • Stewardship Expectation 4 – Well Activity Performance
  • Stewardship Expectation 6 – Integrated Field Management

Stewardship Expectations are available here.

 

Use the Well Data Search Tool to find basic well header data by quadrant and block (please note that this data is derived directly from WONS (the Well Operations Notification System on the Energy Portal) and may be subject to later alteration and update).

Offshore petroleum licensees must decommission wells in a timely and cost-efficient way, in accordance with their licence and other statutory obligations. Please click here to find out more including a downloadable spreadsheet of the current suspended well stock