Gas
Trade and Industry
John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley, Liberal Democrat)
To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what incentives there are for oil and gas producers to maintain gas production from mixed fields.
Malcolm Wicks (Minister for energy, Department of Trade and Industry; Croydon North, Labour)
Producers of oil and gas have commercial incentives to produce gas, whether that is dry gas" from the gas fields found principally in the southern basin of the north sea and in the Irish sea or associated gas" from the mixed oil and gas fields located principally in the northern and central north sea. The rate of production can be affected by contractual nominations, by planned and unplanned maintenance and by the effect of investment in new production, in injection wells or in well workovers.