UK-Energy
Declining domestic production caused Britain to increase its energy imports during the first three months of this year, despite a decline in consumption, according to the latest government figures.

Total consumption on a primary input basis was 228.2 million tones of oil equivalent (toes), 0.6 per cent lower than the first quarter of 2007.

This included a 2.3 per cent decrease in oil consumption, a 2.1 per cent fall in primary electricity usage but a 3.4 per cent in gas consumption, the Department for Business, Enterprise and regulatory Reform reported in its latest edition of Energy Trends.

The net fall in consumption coincided with surging prices, including a 41 per cent increase in heating oils, a 34.7 per cent rise in average diesel prices and a 22 per cent increase in petrol rates over the past year.

At the same time, Energy Trends reported a 5.6 per cent fall in oil production to 18.9 m toes, despite nine new fields starting production in the North Sea.

Gas production was also down 3.5 per cent to 229 terrawatt hours (TWh), while gas imports surged by 14.3 per cent to 131 TWh, dwarfing gas exports which also fell by 7.6 to 21 TWh. Unlike oil, demand for gas was 4.4 per cent higher than a year ago.

The report includes a special feature of renewable energy and said that electricity generated from all renewables as a per cent of electricity generated rose to 5 per cent in 2007, compared with 4.5 per cent in the previous year.