UK Continental Shelf Offshore Petroleum Licences and Blocks

Licence polygons and blocks for prospecting, exploration, and extraction of petroleum resources on the UK Continental Shelf. The data is managed by the North Sea Transition Authority and includes three related datasets: Licences, Licence Blocks, and Sub Areas. It was last updated on 2026-06-18.

Use Cases

• Map exclusive rights for petroleum exploration based on licence polygon data.
• Analyze the distribution of operators and beneficiaries across subdivided licence blocks.
• Study the spatial management of oil and gas resources on the UK Continental Shelf.

Strengths

• Data is provided in multiple geospatial formats including GEOJSON, KML, and GPKG.
• Managed by the authoritative North Sea Transition Authority, which grants licences under the Petroleum Act 1998.
• Includes three interrelated datasets (Licences, Licence Blocks, Sub Areas) for different levels of spatial detail.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Freshness should be verified as the last update timestamp is 2026-06-18.

Provenance

Source

North Sea Transition Authority

Collection Method

Administrative data from the UK's petroleum licensing system.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-18 11:11:12.627275

Geography

Great Britain, its territorial sea, and the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS)