Oil rig Spending on new North Sea oil and gas projects is to plunge by a third this year, industry operators warned on Tuesday, with the basin draining cash at its fastest rate since the 1970s. In a bleak assessment of Britain’s future as an energy producer, Oil & Gas UK, which represents the offshore industry, says that rising costs, heavy taxes and a near-50 per cent slide in crude prices could lead to accelerated decommissioning of older fields. More On this topic IN Oil & Gas “Without sustained investment in new and existing fields, critical infrastructure will disappear, taking with it important North Sea hubs, effectively sterilising areas of the basin and leaving oil and gas in the ground,” said Malcolm Webb, chief executive of the group. Another couple of years of low prices “could take a terrible toll on the North Sea”. Its annual survey of operators, […]