In 1959 exploration for British Gas was first successful in the Groningen area off The Netherlands. The first discovery of British gas in British waters was made in 1965 at the West Sole field which is off the East Anglia coast.

As British gas energy exploration moved further north the industry realised that there were large deposits of oil in the North Sea also. In 1975 an American company, Hamilton Brothers brought the first British oil ashore from the Argyle field. This was rapidly followed by BP landing oil from in the massive Forties field. British self-sufficiency in oil and gas, hitherto an impossible dream, was becoming a possibility.

The economic advantages of being a British gas and then British oil exporter drove the rapid development of the British industry in the North Sea. The oil and gas producers also benefited and made significant profits.

The successes encouraged more British, European and American companies to take out leases on sectors of the North Sea. There were over one hundred installations by the mid-1980s producing millions of barrels were being produced every day.

The initial years of the North Sea oil and gas industry were initiated by a Labour government, this was then expanded and driven forward by the market focused Conservative Margaret Thatcher government that supervised the growth period of the 1980s.

The dream of being an exported was then realised. In the early 1980s Britain become a net exporter of oil, and by the mid-1990s the same was true of gas.

The North Sea operations were focused around two centres. Great Yarmouth/Lowestoft area was the centre of operations for the Southern North Sea gas industry. Aberdeen was the centre for the northern area and subsequently became the oil capital of Europe.

During the 1990s the North Sea output was vulnerable to the fluctuation of world oil prices as were all other oil and gas production areas. Production peaked around 2000/1and the fields are now mature and output is forecast to be on a slow decline. This is counteracted by the improvements in technology meaning more and more amounts of oil and gas could be drawn in future years for up to 40 more years.

The oil and gas infrastructure is now changing to build the ability to receive fuel from the Norweigan North Sea by pipeline and other gas producing areas of the worls by LNG tankers.