The storm nears in the North Sea

UK and Norwegian oil output has defied gravity for the past year, but the slowdown will become plain in 2016

OIL OUTPUT from the UK and Norway has been hanging on in recent months, in spite of the seeming incompatibility of high costs and low oil prices. Both countries actually managed modest rises last year, as projects sanctioned before the slump in crude prices began to deliver oil. But a repeat of that levitation trick in 2016 seems unlikely, for now. Hydrocarbons output from the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) last year managed its first increase for more than 15 years, as spending on new-field development converted reserves into produced barrels. According to government field-by-field data, offshore oil production reached 0.934m barrels a day in the fourth quarter of 2015, an increase of over 11%