Oil and gas has always followed the rules of supply and demand but it's especially driven by supply. There are many people who keep saying that oil will soon run out but actually that's based upon active reserves and not those sat waiting to be drilled or even reserves sat undiscovered.
There's a big difference between a reserve and a proven reserve, the North Sea has big problems in that regard where at today's oil prices its just not profitable to get it out of the ground. Even if there is £1.5 trillion of oil sat out there, it's pointless if it costs £1.6 trillion to drill it and refine it.
What North Sea oil needs is for the oil price to increase dramatically but that isn't going to happen because other countries have great leverage over us when it comes to production. The Saudis and OPEC can quickly increase demand to force down the oil price which essentially puts North Sea oil out of business.
Gas follows a similar story although why the government essentially stopped gas production years ago to instead mostly import from Norway (who have big state owned fields in the North Sea!) I just don't know.
The Norwegians in particular have incredible statistics on this, Equinor is their state owned energy company which manages Norwegian oil and gas exports and it brings in £60bn per year! I'd imagine they'll be having turkey this Christmas!
