Natural Gas

Charles Hendry
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (1) what the (a) lowest and (b) highest daily volume of UK continental shelf natural gas production has been since 1 September 2008;

(2) what the (a) lowest and (b) highest monthly volume of UK continental shelf natural gas production has been since 1 September 2008.

Mr. Kidney
In the period 1 September 2008 to 31 December 2009 (the latest month for which data are available), the (a) lowest monthly volume of UK continental shelf gross gas production was 3.4 billion cubic metres in August 2009, and (b) the highest was 6.8 billion cubic metres in January 2009.

The Department for Energy and Climate change collects monthly data from the gas operators and it is not, therefore, possible to identify the lowest and highest daily volumes of gas production.

Charles Hendry
To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what the gas balancing alert trigger level was for each day between 1 and 19 January 2010.

Mr. Kidney
The gas balancing alert trigger levels are set by National Grid and are published on the National Grid website, under notices, at:

http://marketinformation.natgrid.co.uk/gas/DataItemExplorer.aspx