Analysis
Imports
·
Britain since 2004, and more often than not since 1970,
has been a Net Importer of energy (apart from two periods…1980-1989 &
1994-2004 – when it was a Net Exporter) – this means Britain is dependent upon supplies
from countries other than itself to be able to keep the lights on, its homes
warm and to cook its dinners.
·
Currently Britain imports 10% of the coal used, 10% of
the Petrol used, 17% of natural gas used by its citizens.
·
Britain even imports electricity directly from France
and Ireland, with France alone providing 0.6% of the total British primary
energy supply
·
The value of difference between imports/exports of
energy puts Britain £21Billion into the deficit as of 2011; simply put about
£58million more is spent every day importing energy, than is received from
exporting it.
Sources
·
Gas comes to Britain in two ways:
o There are three
pipelines/links to Norway that provided 41% of the UK’s gas imports in 2011, and
a pipeline to the Netherlands that was also used to import gas.
o Furthermore
Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) is also imported through two ship terminals[1]
which were opened in 2009: during their first year these terminals provided for
25% of all imports, by 2011 gas imported from Qatar accounted for 40% of total
gas imports.
o Overall the
pipelines are the more efficient way of transferring energy; but the LNG ship terminals
do allow for a diversification of supply, something which is important when it’s
predicted that Gas will account for 27% of the total energy supply in 2030.
·
Coal comes from a broader supplier base than gas:
o Russia
(38%) - the supply from Russia peaking at 21 million tonnes in 2008, however in
2011 it accounted for 12 million tonnes
o Columbia
(25%), US (19%)
o All is brought
in by ship.
·
Oil is again more diversified than gas:
o Britain
imports 54 million tonnes of oil a year
o 67% (36
million tonnes) of the crude oil used by Britain comes from Norway
o 8% comes
from Russia, 7% Nigeria, 5% Algeria
o Britain
though does export oil, principally to the Netherlands, Germany, US and France;
mainly this is refined oil, so the crude has been broken down (cracked) into its
useful, and therefore more valuable, parts.
o Again the
vast majority moves by ship.
Strategic Reserves
·
Because of
its historic reliance on the North Sea’s now diminished gas supply, the UK has
a much lower level of storage capacity than many other countries. Britain has the ability to store just 20
days’ supply of gas, compared to 103 days in France, 92 days in Germany and 70
days in Italy.[2]
·
Considering Britain’s emerging reliance upon LNG
imports, and the 20 days allowance that is made in reserve – Britain now needs
a LNG carrier to dock at one of its terminals every day. As the recent problems
have shown[3];
when there is increased use the system is put under significant strain. Currently
imports are required to provide roughly 10hrs or more of energy every day[4]. Although
so far the pressures of supply emergencies have been dealt with: so far there
has been no significant logistical problem, the Somali pirates did not really affect
the route and there have no delays – but should three weeks go by, with no
ships docking, then Britain would be in serious trouble.
·
Oil is just as low in terms of reserve: with an import
level average (between 2007 and 2011) of 56,791 thousand tonnes of oil every
year. This figure equates to a daily consumption of over 1.14million barrels[5].
Again as with gas, without daily dockings of crude carriers Britain would run
out of energy.
Security of Supply
·
Whilst the often used quip, “the countries supplying
the energy have to supply it because they need the money” is true…wars are not
started (usually) by rational people, and even short of war, there is no reason
to believe that logic and/or money will always speak the same.
·
Pipelines are like air fields, roads and ports – they are
fixed thing objects, findable using Google maps[6].
Anything which is able to be found, by definition must be able to be interfered
with. Whilst undersea pipelines are very difficult to get at giving them a
level of security; that same advantage also means that any problems which happen
(even those non-man-made) are tremendously difficult to fix. Problems don’t
happen often, but when they do they are expensive, time consuming and considering
the reliance upon imported gas and oil bad for the economy.
·
Qatar is currently evolving its constitution but is also
reacting to an Arab Spring of its own[7]: this
means that with Britain’s dependence upon LNG from Qatar being so high the
situation must always be watched closely so as to avoid any problems which
might result from leadership changes.
·
Britain’s oil imports from Africa are probably the
most likely energy source to be disrupted; although so far they have proved
consistent.
o Russia of
course is not above using its energy super power status to strengthen its hands
in negotiations; therefore whilst it is not as massive a percentage of Britain’s
energy supplies as Qatar is, the current levels of reserves maintained should
not allow the government to feel comfortable.
·
Most of Britain’s gas supply, some of its oil, and
much of her allies’ oil supplies pass through the Straits of Hormuz, as well as
some of the other 5 maritime choke points – meaning Britain’s strategic
situation is complex, and requires constant attention & resources. However,
for Britain a sudden rise in cost caused by a drop in energy supply would be
almost as bad for the economy/national security as a direct attack on Britain’s
supply; especially if it lead to the sources of energy that the economy is
reliant upon being pooled/procured by others with more money/greater levels
desperation.
Conclusion: How Secure is Britain’s
Energy?
·
In short: Britain’s energy is not that secure - the
system was designed around best commercial practice, which is not necessarily
best strategic practice, and therefore it is lacking in ‘slack’ to take up any
disruption.
·
Diversification of energy supply sources should be the
order of the day. Ideally this would be capitalising upon technological leads
in renewables and nuclear power to provide Britain with as much of its own
energy as possible to minimise disruption that could be caused by any upset in
supply. However, as problems with getting the funding for new nuclear plants
have shown (and they haven’t even started to be built) the British government
is not necessarily geared up for these problems.
·
Finally Britain has a real problem in terms of what it
can do; for the last 50 years or so Britain governments have based a lot of the
country’s energy strategy/’insurance’ upon a multi-national pooling energy
security. This has been primarily amongst allies proving sea security and
multiple sources providing security of supply. Unfortunately, Britain does not
seem to be using multiple sources anymore (mainly relying upon Norway, Qatar
and Russia), and we & our allies are disarming[8] -
some would say in the face of increasing threats.
[2] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/energy-firms-to-be-forced-to-keep-large-gas-reserves-under-new-proposals-8550635.html
.26/03/2013
[4] Currently depending upon the size of the carrier, as
each vessel only carries (depending upon its size) between 6 and 12 hours
energy supply
[6] https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Easington+terminal&hl=en&ll=53.658271,0.117073&spn=0.01737,0.052314&sll=54.790393,-1.326599&sspn=0.540794,1.674042&t=h&hq=terminal&hnear=Easington,+County+Durham,+United+Kingdom&fll=53.658271,0.117073&fspn=0.01737,0.052314&z=15
– 30/06/2013
[8] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9955667/French-defence-cuts-could-harm-British-military-partnership.html,
26/03/2013, or see recent ‘notes’ by same author.
Extra Info
From Report for Phoenix Think Tank report by Author: Reshaping the Argument
Secure Sea Lines of Communication out to 1000nm from Britain’s coast,
maintain an appropriate independent intervention capability allowing for
defence/securing of overseas territories and ability to choose as to conflict
involvement.
Why does
this statement work for Britain;
1) With
Britain dependent upon imports, especially of energy in the form of Liquefied
Natural Gas – the ability to protect those routes up 1000nm away from our
shores means that British governments could be pretty sure of their continual
arrival and of their ability to deal with any problems along the route – which
it would be able to do as any naval force self-sufficient enough to operate
1000nm away from home can easily deploy 8000nm or even further away if
necessary – as the Japanese regularly demonstrate with their deployments to
gulf and to counter-piracy operations of the coast of Somalia.
Figure 1: The total
British Exclusive Economic Zone, the 5th largest in the world, this map comes
from Wikipedia
Figure 2: The
British Exclusive Economic Zone around the British Isles, this map also comes
from Wikipedia
2) Britain has
the 5th largest exclusive economic zone out of all the countries in
the world; this is larger than Japan’s, Canada’s, Brazil’s, even China’s.
However, if a nation can secure its trade out to 1000nm, it can secure it EEZ
out the 200nm from its own shore line and from that of its overseas
territories. Why is this important though? Well figure 2 (on the previous page)
shows why, as its under Britain’s blue that a lot of North Sea Gas was found,
under other blue areas around the globe in figure 1 are deposits of oil, gas,
coal, iron, copper, silicon, gold and many more materials. These are things
which the British economy is dependent upon, which the world economy is
dependent upon and which the access to are of crucial importance to lives of Britain’s
citizens.
3) This links
nicely into the reason for having an independent intervention capability; after
all currently three of Britain’s Over Seas Territories are under dispute, two
in the South Atlantic and Gibraltar…now whilst its extremely unlikely almost
unthinkable (disputes over flags not withstanding) for war to break out with
Spain over the issue; we cannot see the future and what conflicts it will bring
(who 12 months ago would have predicted the wave of uprisings in the middle
east and north Africa) - therefore maintaining the capability to carry out an
intervention independently that can be used for Britain’s own requirements or
perhaps slotted into a multi-national force for larger operations.
4) The
statement also fulfils the wider role of the capability required to achieve it,
and the attendant personnel, vessels, aircraft and other equipment is just as
useful for Britain to deploy in situations such as the Japanese Tsunami, the
recovery of stranded British citizens in the cases of the Icelandic Volcano/Ash
Cloud and evacuations from countries in uprising as HMS Cumberland achieved in Libya.
Taken from Government Report
UK Government Data on Supply
Thousand tonnes
|
||||||||||||||||
2007
|
2008
|
2009
|
2010
|
2011
|
||||||||||||
Primary
oils (Crude oil, NGLs and feedstocks)
|
||||||||||||||||
Indigenous production (2)
|
76,575
|
71,665
|
68,199
|
62,962
|
51,972
|
|||||||||||
Imports
|
57,357
|
60,041
|
54,387
|
54,587
|
57,586
|
|||||||||||
Exports (3)
|
-50,999
|
-48,401
|
-45,202
|
-42,196
|
-33,745
|
|||||||||||
Transfers - Transfers to products (4)
|
-2,754
|
-2,800
|
-2,618
|
-2,306
|
-2,141
|
|||||||||||
Product rebrands (5)
|
+547
|
+208
|
+16
|
+232
|
+155
|
|||||||||||
Stock change (6)
|
+784
|
+234
|
+545
|
-39
|
+611
|
|||||||||||
Use during production (7)
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
-
|
|||||||||||
Calculated refinery throughput (8)
|
81,509
|
80,947
|
75,327
|
73,239
|
74,438
|
|||||||||||
Overall statistical difference (9)
|
32
|
208
|
102
|
39
|
-271
|
|||||||||||
Actual refinery throughput
|
81,477
|
80,740
|
75,225
|
73,200
|
74,709
|
|||||||||||
Petroleum
products
|
||||||||||||||||
Losses in refining process (10)
|
293r
|
315
|
330r
|
329
|
213
|
|||||||||||
Refinery gross production (11)
|
81,184r
|
80,425
|
74,895r
|
72,871
|
74,496
|
|||||||||||
Transfers - Transfers to products (4)
|
2,754
|
2,800
|
2,618
|
2,306
|
2,141
|
|||||||||||
Product rebrands (5)
|
-547
|
-208
|
-16
|
-232
|
-155
|
|||||||||||
Imports
|
25,110r
|
24,186
|
22,172r
|
23,979r
|
22,804
|
|||||||||||
Exports (12)
|
-29,983r
|
-28,791
|
-25,733
|
-26,065
|
-27,800
|
|||||||||||
Marine bunkers
|
-2,371
|
-2,594
|
-2,490
|
-2,139
|
-2,296
|
|||||||||||
Stock changes (6) - Refineries
|
1,067
|
-3r
|
421
|
577
|
46
|
|||||||||||
Power
generators
|
+5
|
+127
|
-101
|
+26
|
+142
|
|||||||||||
Calculated total supply
|
77,220r
|
75,942r
|
71,766r
|
71,323r
|
69,378
|
|||||||||||
Statistical difference (9)
|
-204r
|
72r
|
-102r
|
150r
|
-109
|
|||||||||||
Total demand (4)
|
77,424r
|
75,870r
|
75,870r
|
71,173r
|
69,487
|
|||||||||||
Of which:
|
||||||||||||||||
Energy use
|
69,456r
|
67,838r
|
64,502r
|
63,644r
|
62,232
|
|||||||||||
Of which, for electricity generation (13)
|
1,126
|
1,575r
|
1,568r
|
1,143r
|
832
|
|||||||||||
total refinery fuels
(13)
|
4,676r
|
4,752
|
4,399
|
4,474r
|
4,391
|
|||||||||||
Non-energy use
|
7,967
|
8,032r
|
7,365
|
7,530r
|
7,255
|
|||||||||||
(1) Aggregate monthly data on oil production,
trade, refinery throughput and inland deliveries are available - see
paragraph
|
||||||||||||||||
3.73 and Annex C.
|
||||||||||||||||
(2) Crude oil plus condensates and petroleum
gases derived at onshore treatment plants.
|
||||||||||||||||
(3) Includes NGLs, process oils and
re-exports.
|
||||||||||||||||
(4) Disposals of NGLs by direct sale
(excluding exports) or for blending.
|
||||||||||||||||
(5) Product rebrands (inter-product blends or
transfers) represent petroleum products received at refineries/ plants as
process
|
||||||||||||||||
for refinery or cracking unit
operations.
|
||||||||||||||||
(6) Impact of stock changes on supplies. A
stock fall is shown as (+) as it increases supplies, and vice-versa for a
stock rise (-).
|
||||||||||||||||
(7) Own use in onshore terminals and gas
separation plants. These figures ceased to be available from January 2001
with
|
||||||||||||||||
the advent of the new PPRS system.
|
||||||||||||||||
(8) Equivalent to the total supplies reported
against the upstream transformation sector in Table 3.1.
|
||||||||||||||||
(9) Supply greater than (+) or less than (-)
recorded throughput or disposals.
|
||||||||||||||||
(10)
Calculated as the difference between actual refinery throughput and gross
refinery production.
|
||||||||||||||||
(11) Includes
refinery fuels.
|
||||||||||||||||
(12) Excludes NGLs.
|
||||||||||||||||
(13)
Figures cover petroleum used to generate electricity by all major power
producers and by all other generators, including
|
||||||||||||||||
petroleum used to generate electricity at refineries. These quantities are also included in the
totals reported as used as
|
||||||||||||||||
refinery fuel, so there is thus some
overlap in these figures.
|
||||||||||||||||
GWh
|
|||||||||||||
2007
|
2008
|
2009
|
2010
|
2011
|
|||||||||
LNG
Imports via:
|
|||||||||||||
Dragon (Milford Haven) (1)
|
-
|
-
|
10,034
|
19,097
|
28,365
|
||||||||
Isle of Grain (Isle of Grain) (2)
|
14,861
|
8,912
|
50,483
|
59,770
|
85,081
|
||||||||
South Hook (Milford Haven) (3)
|
-
|
-
|
49,249
|
124,922
|
157,287
|
||||||||
Teesside GasPort (Teesside) (4)
|
42
|
-
|
813
|
-
|
-
|
||||||||
14,903
|
8,912
|
110,579
|
203,789
|
270,733
|
|||||||||
(1) Dragon began importing LNG to the UK in
August 2009.
|
|||||||||||||
(2) LNG imports at Canvey Island commenced in
1965 but ceased in the early 1980's when, with increasing
|
|||||||||||||
supplies from the North Sea, imports
were no longer required. UK natural gas production peaked in 2000
|
|||||||||||||
and as a result of falling production
LNG imports recommenced at the Isle of Grain in 2005.
|
|||||||||||||
(3) South Hook began importing LNG to the UK in
April 2009.
|
|||||||||||||
(4) Teesside GasPort was commissioned with a
small amount of gas in February 2007.
|
|||||||||||||
US Energy Information Administration
Volume of Crude Oil and Petroleum Products
Transported Through World Chokepoints, 2007-2011
|
|||||
Location
|
2007
|
2008
|
2009
|
2010
|
2011
|
Bab
el_Mandab
|
4.6
|
4.5
|
2.9
|
2.7
|
3.4
|
Turkish
Straits
|
2.7
|
2.7
|
2.8
|
2.9
|
N/A
|
Danish
Straits
|
3.2
|
2.8
|
3.0
|
3.0
|
N/A
|
Strait
of Hormuz
|
16.7
|
17.5
|
15.7
|
15.9
|
17.0
|
Panama
Canal
|
0.7
|
0.7
|
0.8
|
0.7
|
0.8
|
Crude
Oil
|
0.1
|
0.2
|
0.2
|
0.1
|
0.1
|
Petroleum
Products
|
0.6
|
0.6
|
0.6
|
0.6
|
0.6
|
Suez
Canal and SUMED Pipeline
|
4.7
|
4.6
|
3.0
|
3.1
|
3.8
|
Suez
Crude Oil
|
1.3
|
1.2
|
0.6
|
0.7
|
0.8
|
Suez
Petroleum Products
|
1.1
|
1.3
|
1.3
|
1.3
|
1.4
|
SUMED
Crude Oil
|
2.4
|
2.1
|
1.2
|
1.1
|
1.7
|
Notes:
· All estimates are in million barrels per day. · "N/A" is not available.
· The table does not include a breakout of crude oil and petroleum products
for most chokepoints because only the Panama Canal and Suez Canal have
official data to confirm breakout numbers. · Adding crude oil and petroleum
products may be different than the total because of rounding. · Data for
Panama Canal is by fiscal years.
Source:
EIA estimates based on APEX Tanker Data (Lloyd's Maritime Intelligence Unit).
Panama Canal Authority and Suez Canal Authority, converted with EIA
conversion factors.
|
|||||
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