North Sea's golden years

The region may be past its prime but is still running with the best

The North Sea has been through a remarkable change since the oil price fall in 2014. Costs have dropped by as much as 40% and, against the odds, a new slate of projects awaits investment decisions in 2018. Despite its maturity, the region still sucks in investment and competes with upstart shale oil and low-cost Opec resources. Two fundamental drivers are behind the North Sea's continued attractiveness: it's conventional oil, relatively easy to get to, and it's located in politically placid OECD waters. OECD conventional liquids production has declined from about 23m barrels a day in 1997 to about 17m b/d in 2017. For producers that don't have access to North American unconventional projects