Written question asked by Lord Bradshaw (Liberal Democrat), in the House of Lords. It was answered by Lord Jones of Birmingham (Other (affiliation)) on Wednesday, 12 December 2007.

Energy: Oil Prices

Question: asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether their forecasts relating to oil prices falling from $65 per barrel in 2006 to $53 per barrel by 2030 remain valid in the light of recent concerns about long-term oil supplies.

Answer: The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform does not publish oil price forecasts. It publishes oil, gas and coal future price assumptions for the period till 2020, which are used in the department’s analytical work. In order to capture some of the uncertainty around future oil prices, three different scenarios are presented: a high, central and a low scenario. The last set of future oil price assumptions were published alongside the energy White Paper in May 2007 and can be found in Annex B of the document titled Updated Energy and Carbon Emissions Projections: the Energy White Paper at the following link: www.berr.gov.uk/files/file39580.pdf. The figures mentioned in the question originate from this document. We keep the future oil prices assumptions under revision and will update them as necessary.

Secondary information