Tax incentives have encouraged capex spend...but this has led to an overheated OFS marketand rising costs have caused some marginal projects to be postponed or even cancelled (Bressay (Statoil) and Rosebank (Chevron) being well known examples)Production decline continued in 2013...Increase in planned and unplanned shutdownsAgeing infrastructure...compounded by few large field start-ups and poor exploration successWM estimates UKNS average discovery size in 2013 to be c.11.3mmbbl, which struggle to meet commercial thresholds in current high cost...
