Economic Report 2023 - Offshore Energies UK (OEUK)

6. UK energy production

The UK benefits from diverse energy resources but domestic energy production has fallen 62% since 2000. This marks a much greater decline than consumption, which has fallen by 28% since then. These trends moved the UK from being a net exporter of energy, to a significant net importer. Domestic energy production was just over 110mn toe (around 1,250 TWh) in 2022 compared with 170mn toe, so the UK only produced around two-thirds of its own energy last year.

The bulk of that is oil and gas, accounting for around 70% of UK production, with the remainder mainly being related to primary electricity from renewables, nuclear, bioenergy and waste. Declines in domestic oil and gas production mean that almost all the imports are made up of these, from countries around the world. This gap will continue to widen in the years to come, as production rates fall faster than consumption and electricity use is not growing fast enough to replace oil and gas.

Figure 9 Energy production by source since 2000

350

Oil and oil products

Natural gas

Coal

Bioenergy & waste

Primary electricity - nuclear Total energy consumption

Primary electricity - wind, solar and hydro

300

250

200

150

100 UK energy production and consumption (million tonnes of oil equivalent)

50

0

2000

2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

2020

2022

Source: DESNZ, OEUK

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ECONOMI C REPORT 2023