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Offshore Energy Outlook

Offshore Energy Outlook

Full Title: Offshore Energy Outlook
Author(s): IEA
Publisher(s): IEA
Publication Date: April 1, 2018
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):

Energy produced offshore is a major component of global oil and natural gas supply and
could provide an increasingly important source of renewable electricity. Resources are
enormous, but offshore projects have to prove their worth in a changing market and
policy context, amid a variety of pressures on the world’s oceans. More than a quarter of
today’s oil and gas supply is produced offshore, mostly in the Middle East, the North Sea,
Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caspian Sea. While offshore oil production has been
relatively stable since 2000, natural gas output from offshore fields has risen by more than
50% over the same period. Offshore electricity generation, mainly from wind, has increased
rapidly in recent years, notably in the relatively shallow coastal waters of Europe’s North
Sea. But it is not all plain sailing. The 2010 Deepwater Horizon accident and spill in the Gulf
of Mexico was a major setback for the offshore hydrocarbons industry; prospects for
offshore oil and gas have also been shaken by the shale revolution and by lower prices, and
must cope with longer-term uncertainties over demand. Offshore wind is a rising force, but
remains for the moment a relatively marginal one at 0.2% of global electricity generation;
wind and other marine technologies face stiff competition from a range of onshore options,
including other low-carbon sources of generation. This new report in the World Energy
Outlook series provides a detailed assessment of the outlook for offshore energy against a
dynamic backdrop of energy market, policy, technology and environmental considerations.

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