Brent & Beyond

About & sources

Brent & Beyond is a free, non-commercial map of North Sea energy from 1975 to today: UK oil and gas fields, installations, pipelines, offshore wind and tidal energy, tied to a monthly time slider. Since r21 it also shows Norwegian, Dutch and Danish fields and production from their regulators.

Hugh Mackenzie on X

Explore pages

Key numbers and sources for the top 50 UK oil and gas fields (for example Forties, Brent and Buzzard), the UK onshore shale basins and the platform fabrication yards, each with a link back into the map.

Jump to…

Europe's supply · Find a field (Brent) · UK shale · North Sea story

Changelog

What changed in each release: read the changelog.

Privacy

No cookies, no ads and no third-party trackers. To see what is useful, the site sends one small anonymous note per visit: which features were used (for example the Story, a layer or a field panel), the name of the website that linked here, and the country Cloudflare reports for the connection. No IP address, cookie or other identifier is stored, and only daily totals are reviewed. Nothing is sent if your browser has Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control turned on. Ask questions are saved anonymously, as described in the Ask panel. Uploaded photos are kept privately and reviewed before anything is published.

Shared photos

Many platforms have no openly licensed photo yet. If you have one, use Share a photo to upload it, or reply to @HughMackenzDuo on X. Every photo is reviewed before anything is published, and uploads are kept private until then. By sharing, you confirm the photo is yours (or you have the right to share it) and allow Brent & Beyond to post it with credit. Ask us anytime to take it down.

Attribution

Contains information provided by the North Sea Transition Authority and/or other third parties (NSTA licence: non-commercial use) · Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, incl. from Crown Estate Scotland and HMRC · Contains data provided by The Crown Estate that is protected by copyright and database rights · Turbines © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Contains BMRS data © Elexon Limited 2026 · Contains data under the Norwegian licence for Open government data (NLOD) distributed by the Norwegian Offshore Directorate · Source: NLOG.NL (TNO Geological Survey of the Netherlands) · Source: Danish Energy Agency (Energistyrelsen)

Sources, licences and lags

• Oil & gas production, fields, installations, pipelines: North Sea Transition Authority open data (ArcGIS feature services: PPRS field production, Offshore hydrocarbon fields, UKCS surface infrastructure, pipelines). Licence: NSTA User Agreement, which allows non-commercial use only. Contains information provided by the North Sea Transition Authority and/or other third parties.
• Norway: Norwegian Offshore Directorate (Sodir), FactPages and the FactMaps data service: fields and outlines, monthly field production (net saleable, from 1971), reserves, facilities, pipelines and wellbore counts. Licence: NLOD 2.0. Contains data under the Norwegian licence for Open government data (NLOD) distributed by the Norwegian Offshore Directorate. Transboundary fields such as Statfjord and Murchison are reported as the Norwegian share, so they add to the UK figures without double counting.
• Netherlands: NLOG (TNO Geological Survey of the Netherlands) production per field, monthly from January 2003 (no earlier monthly figures are published), onshore and offshore; field outlines, facilities and wells from the NLOG GeoServer. Gas is reported in Nm³ (0 °C) and converted to Sm³ (15 °C). Groningen gas is low-calorific, so its boe (volume based) overstates its energy. Underground gas storage is left out. Facility start dates are inferred from the field they sit in. Terms: NLOG disclaimer (free to copy, distribute and edit with NLOG.NL named as the source); field outlines are also CC0 on data.overheid.nl. Source: NLOG.NL.
• Denmark: Danish Energy Agency (Energistyrelsen), monthly and yearly production: monthly field figures from the monthly reports (online from January 2024); before that, the yearly workbook (1972 onwards) is shown as an even monthly rate. Oil includes condensate. Field outlines and installations from the DEA shapefiles. Months after the UK slider's latest month appear in the field charts only. Licence flagged: the DEA's data policy allows free copying with the agency named as source and without altering or distorting the content, but it is not a formal open licence. Units are converted here. Source: Danish Energy Agency. No Danish or Dutch pipelines are shown yet.
• Open data and AI access (r24, r25): CSV and JSON downloads with each source's licence, a read-only JSON API, an MCP server for AI assistants and llms.txt. Plain pages: countries, monthly summary, what changed.
• Europe oil imports (r22): Eurostat nrg_ti_oilm (imports of crude oil and oil products by partner country, monthly, thousand tonnes) and nrg_cb_oilm (monthly oil balance: production, imports, exports, stock changes, statistical difference), reused under the Eurostat copyright policy (source: Eurostat). EU-27 figures are extra-EU imports only. UK imports: HMRC overseas trade statistics via the uktradeinfo API (net mass, HS 2709 crude and HS 2710 products, all partners), OGL v3.0. UK crude production after Oct 2020 (when Eurostat stops reporting it): International Energy Forum (IEF), Joint Organizations Data Initiative (JODI) Oil World Database, accessed 17 Oct 2026. Crude is credited to the country of origin; oil products to the last shipping country, which may not be where their crude was produced. Kazakh crude, mostly CPC Blend loaded at Novorossiysk in Russia, counts as Kazakh. Flow lines are schematic, not shipping routes.
• European gas storage: sites, operators, type, status, start-up year, working gas volume and withdrawal/injection capacity from the GIE Storage Database (Storage Map 2026, data as of August 2026; Source: GIE, Gas Infrastructure Europe). Daily fill levels from GIE AGSI+ (Source: GIE AGSI+), shown per facility where AGSI+ publishes one, otherwise for the storage group or the country, and labelled as such. Positions are approximate: each site is placed at the town or village it is named after, geocoded with OpenStreetMap Nominatim (© OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL); Rough uses the NSTA field outline. Storage groups (virtual storage) are counted once. Planned projects and LNG terminals are not mapped. Working gas is technical capacity in TWh; bcm is a rough conversion at 11.5 kWh/m³.
• Gas, oil and LNG terminals and refineries (r26): Gas terminals: sites from Wikipedia and Wikidata, the EU register and Norwegianpetroleum.no (Norwegian plant capacities); live Norwegian exit nominations from Gassco UMM (nominations, not metered flows; information only, Gassco takes no responsibility for decisions based on it); UK entry flows (instantaneous flow into the National Transmission System at St Fergus, Bacton, Easington, Teesside, Barrow, Isle of Grain and Milford Haven) are shown live with the time National Gas published them: Data: National Gas Transmission, Gas Data Portal, reused with National Gas Transmission’s written consent (19 Oct 2026) and refreshed from their API at most every 12 minutes. Oil terminals: throughput as published by Shetland Islands Council (Sullom Voe), Orkney Islands Council (Flotta), INEOS FPS, the Port of Rotterdam, Naftoport and TAL. Refineries: UK nameplate capacities from DESNZ (July 2025, methodology note Annex 2) and, for Grangemouth and Lindsey (both closed in 2025), the US EIA UK brief (2024); closure dates from Reuters and BBC, confirmed in DUKES 2026; Europe from the EEA Industrial Reporting database (E-PRTR activity 1(a), 2024 CO₂ to air; CC BY 4.0), which gives no capacity; country capacity cross-check from Concawe via the FuelsEurope Statistical Report. Crude landed by port: HMRC overseas trade statistics (uktradeinfo, CN 2709, OGL v3.0), a proxy for supply to nearby refineries, not refinery intake. LNG: GIE LNG Database (Aug 2026) and daily send-out from GIE ALSI (Source: GIE). Positions from the EU register, Wikidata or OpenStreetMap Nominatim (approximate where marked). Full notes: refineries, gas terminals, oil terminals, LNG terminals.
• Europe gas imports (r27): EU-27 monthly imports of natural gas by partner from Eurostat nrg_ti_gasm (G3000 natural gas incl. LNG, G3200 LNG; pipeline = total minus LNG; million m³ and TJ gross calorific value) and production from nrg_cb_gasm (Source: Eurostat, reuse with attribution). Imports from outside the EU are the EU27_2020 importer total minus the sum of the 27 member-state partners (Eurostat publishes no EU partner aggregate here). Partners are as reported: Ukraine, Belarus, Türkiye, Serbia, Tunisia, Albania and Switzerland are mostly transit or border countries, so the Russia share is shown as a range. UK from DESNZ Energy Trends 4.2–4.4 (pipeline imports by pipeline, LNG by country of origin; Open Government Licence v3.0). Pipeline routes and LNG by origin region from the Bruegel European natural gas imports dataset (ENTSOG flows and ship tracking; legacy file to June 2026; free reuse with attribution). Groningen production from NLOG field data. Map lines are schematic, from an export point to the entry point or the LNG terminals. 1 bcm ≈ 10.5–11 TWh (GCV); the TWh figures are the published energy values, not a conversion. Full notes: Europe gas imports.
• Scottish offshore wind and tidal leases: Crown Estate Scotland Spatial Hub. Contains public sector information, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, from Crown Estate Scotland.
• Individual wind turbine positions: © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence (ODbL) 1.0. Extracted through the Overpass API (nodes tagged generator:source=wind) and matched to Crown Estate / Crown Estate Scotland lease areas. Tags such as model and status are the volunteers' own and may not match operators' as-built records.
• Per-wind-farm generation: Elexon Insights B1610 (actual generation per BMU). Contains BMRS data © Elexon Limited copyright and database right 2026. Used under the BMRS data licence; this does not imply Elexon's endorsement.
• Dogger Bank and Sofia project details: SSE Renewables, Dogger Bank Wind Farm weekly notices of operations, RWE press release (11 Jun 2026), offshorewind.biz and HVDC World, all cited in each panel.
• English, Welsh and NI wind sites: The Crown Estate Wind Site Agreements. Contains data provided by The Crown Estate that is protected by copyright and database rights. (TCE Open Data Licence (GIS) v1.1)
• Offshore wind capacity: DESNZ, Energy Trends table 6.1, renewable electricity capacity and generation (published 29 Sep 2026; UK offshore wind, seabed plus floating, cumulative installed capacity at the end of each quarter from 2010). Accredited Official Statistics. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Exchequer receipts: HMRC, Statistics of government revenues from UK oil and gas production (Sep 2025 tables). Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
• Tidal facts: Orbital Marine Power (12 Oct 2026 release), EMEC, euro-tides.eu. These are cited facts; no text or images are reused from them.
• Photos: where possible, openly licensed images (CC0, public domain, CC BY, CC BY-SA, OGL) from Wikimedia Commons (including Geograph Britain and Ireland uploads) and from Flickr where the photographer's licence allows reuse. Where no openly licensed photo exists, the site uses photos that operators, field partners or contractors published for press and PR purposes; these remain the owners' copyright. Every photo is resized and hosted here, and is credited under the image with its author or owner, licence and a link to the source page. Yard, harbour and decommissioning photos are labelled as such.
• Image removal requests: if you own an image shown here and would like it credited differently or removed, contact us to request removal at [email protected] and it will be taken down promptly.
• Tie-backs and hosts: inferred from NSTA pipeline geometry (production pipelines traced from the field to the nearest surface installation). A ✓ marks a link checked against operator, regulator or trade-press sources, which are linked in the field panel.
• Major events: curated by hand. Each event cites its sources in its panel: AAIB reports (GOV.UK, OGL v3), HSE, The National Archives, BBC, Energy Voice and Wikipedia. Locations are approximate. Fatality counts come from the official report where there is one.
• Brent crude price: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Europe Brent Spot Price FOB (series RBRTE, monthly, May 1987 onwards). This is the same series FRED republishes as MCOILBRENTEU. Source: U.S. EIA. US government data is generally in the public domain. Prices before May 1987 are not shown, because we have not yet found a monthly source with a clear licence.
• Inflation adjustment: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI-U (all items, US city average, not seasonally adjusted, CUUR0000SA0), via the BLS public API. "Real $" means dollars at the latest CPI month's prices.
• Onshore oil and gas network: NSTA open data has no onshore pipeline layer. FPS onshore stations and lines come from INEOS FPS, Technical; Mossmorran and the St Fergus NGL line come from Wikipedia. Onshore routes are drawn as schematic straight lines, not surveyed routes. Offshore pipelines, terminals and compression/riser platforms come from NSTA.
• Basemap: OpenFreeMap © OpenMapTiles, data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Map library: MapLibre GL JS (BSD).

Method notes

• Field output is the sum of PPRS reporting units per field for offshore fields: oil + condensate (kb/d) + gas (associated + dry, mmscf/d) ÷ 5.8 → kboe/d. The 5.8 Mscf/boe factor is an assumption we have chosen; we have not yet confirmed NSTA's convention.
• Norway, Netherlands and Denmark use the same kboe/d: liquids 1 Sm³ = 6.28981 bbl, gas 1 Sm³ = 35.3147 scf, Nm³ to Sm³ × 1.05491, gas at 5.8 Mscf/boe. Sodir's own reserve figures use its oil-equivalent basis (1,000 Sm³ gas = 1 Sm³ o.e.) and are labelled as such. The "UK vs Norway, NL, DK" chart sums the four countries' reported shares.
• The latest month is shown as provisional. Operators can resubmit, and NSTA publishes about 2.5 months after the month ends.
• Wind and tidal layers show lease and project status today. They are not yet tied to the time slider.

A free, non-commercial public resource: no ads and no paid tier.