Europe / Caspian / CIS
Country profile: United Kingdom
| Location: | Western Europe, islands including the northern one-sixth of the island of Ireland between the North Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea, northwest of France |
| Climate: | temperate; moderated by prevailing southwest winds over the North Atlantic Current; more than one-half of the days are overcast |
| Terrain: | mostly rugged hills and low mountains; level to rolling plains in east and southeast |
| Size: | 244820 sq. km total (Land area: 241590 sq. km Water area: 3230 sq.km) |
| Population: | 60,943,912 (July 2008 est.) |
| Languages: | English, Welsh (about 26% of the population of Wales), Scottish form of Gaelic (about 60,000 in Scotland) |
| Government: | constitutional monarchy |
| Capital city: | London |
| Legal system: | based on common law tradition with early Roman and modern continental influences; has nonbinding judicial review of Acts of Parliament under the Human Rights Act of 1998; accepts compulsory ICJ jurisdiction, with reservations |
| Currency: | British pound (GBP) |
| Licensing: |
Country profile
The United Kingdom (UK) is an important political and economic power in Europe and the world. It has the second-largest economy in the European Union (EU) with a nominal 2005 gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.2 trillion. The UK economy grew by 1.8 percent in 2005, with growth of 2.2 percent forecasted for 2006. While the UK has been a member of the EU since 1973, it does not participate in the European single currency, the Euro. The UK is the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the EU.
However, after years of being a net exporter of both fuels, the UK became a net importer of natural gas in 2004. Government estimates also predict that the country will become a net importer of oil by the end of the decade. Production from UK oil and natural gas fields peaked in the late 1990s and has declined steadily over the past several years, as the discovery of new reserves has not kept pace with the maturation of existing fields. In response, the government has begun a three-pronged approach to address the predicted domestic shortfalls: 1) increasing domestic production through efficiency gains and the exploitation of marginal fields; 2) establishing necessary import infrastructure, such as liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving terminals and transnational pipelines; and 3) investing in energy conservation and renewables.
Energy production and consumption
| Oil | Gas | |
| Production: | 1 million bbl/day (2005 est.) | 84 billion cu m (2005 est.) |
| Consumption: | 1 million bbl/day (2005 est.) | 91 billion cu m (2005 est.) |
| Exports: | 1 million bbl/day (2005 est.) | 8 billion cu m (2005 est.) |
| Imports: | 1 million bbl/day (2005 est.) | 15 billion cu m (2005 est.) |
| Reserves: | 4 billion bbl (1 January 2006 est.) | 509 |
| Major fields: |
United Kingdom - recent news
| 02 Sep 26 |
UK: Workers in strike ballot with North Sea operator Apache Unite, the UK’s largest offshore union, is balloting approximately 160 offshore workers employed by North Sea operator Apache on strike action. The strike action ballot covers workers on seven Apache assets associated with the Forties and Beryl oil fields. |
| 02 Sep 26 |
UK: Scottish offshore wind jobs and investment ‘at risk’ from UK energy plan Thousands of jobs and tens of billions of pounds of investment in Scotland’s offshore wind sector could be put at risk by the UK Government’s forthcoming energy blueprint, industry leaders have warned. |
| 02 Sep 26 |
UK: Orcadian enters into a joint development agreement for the Earlham and Orwell developments AIM-listed Orcadian has entered into a non-exclusive, joint development agreement with an American developer of offshore data centre infrastructure.The Agreement establishes a 90-day process to enable due diligence, commercial validation and negotiation of a definitive Earlham and Orwell energy-to-compute transaction. |
| 01 Sep 26 |
UK: Low Carbon submits planning application for Forsinain Forest Wind Farm Renewable energy company, Low Carbon, has successfully submitted its Section 36 planning application to the Scottish Government’s Energy Consents Unit for the Forsinain Forest Wind Farm. |
| 01 Sep 26 |
UK: Proserv secures Equinor contract to deploy ECG™ monitoring technology at Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm Proserv has secured a full deployment contract with Equinor to install its ECG™ cable monitoring technology at the 402 MW Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm off the Norfolk coast, with deployment scheduled to commence in 2027. |
United Kingdom - more news
Other countries in this region
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- Belgium,
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- Tajikistan,
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- Uzbekistan
