United Kingdom's natural resources

The United Kingdom has a greater role in the world economy as an importer of raw materials than it does as a provider of resources. It was a net exporter of both oil and natural gas until 2005.

The Country

The United Kingdom, which includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, is located to the north of western continental Europe. The North Atlantic Ocean lies to the west and north, the North Sea to the east, and the English Channel to the south. The United Kingdom has a varied terrain with mountains, hills, highlands, moors, and lowlands. It has an abundance of lakes and rivers including the Thames, the Mersey, and the Tyne. Great Britain has many deep harbors along its coastlines, which have played important roles in the country’s economic prosperity, as these harbors are ideal for shipping. The United Kingdom is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a member of the European Union. However, the country is not a member of the European Economic and Monetary Union (the EU nations that have agreed to share a single currency, the euro).

In 2023, the United Kingdom was the second-largest economy in Europe. It was a major trading power with a market-based economy. According to the World Factbook, in 2023, the United Kingdom had a gross domestic product of $3.7 trillion, ranking it tenth in the world during that year. The United Kingdom has been a net importer of energy since 2005. It major trading partners are the United States, European Union member countries, and China.

Coal

Coal is a fossil fuel mined in the United Kingdom in both deep-shaft underground mines and open-cast mines. According to the World Factbook, in 2022, the country's recoverable coal reserves were estimated to be 26 million metric tons and it produced $1.891 million metric tons during that year. The coal reserves at the Firth of Forth, Scotland, are one of the largest exploitable reserves in Western Europe. Coal seams have also been discovered in the Jurassic Brent sands in the North Sea. At one time, coal was one of the major resources that established the United Kingdom as a significant economic power. However, coal mining in the United Kingdom began declining around 1970. There are several reasons for this decline. Imported coal can be purchased more cheaply than the domestically mined coal, and the coal found in the United Kingdom has a higher sulfur and ash content, which causes it to emit large amounts of greenhouse gases, especially sulfur dioxide, when it is burned. There is also an influential and powerful environmental movement in the United Kingdom for the complete elimination of coal as a fuel source.

The major drawback to coal as an energy source is the large amount of pollutants that it produces and emits into the atmosphere. The fall of production and consumption by 2018 was largely attributed to the lower prices of natural gas and environmental efforts such as a 2013 carbon tax. The United Kingdom has investigated means of trapping carbon dioxide emissions and making coal a cleaner-burning fuel in order to make its use compatible with the environmental standards of the European Union and those established in the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. In 2009, the government approved the installation of four coal-fired power plants on condition that they be equipped to carbon dioxide emissions and store them underground. Using coal deposits as a source for coal gas is also a possible means of utilizing the coal reserves. This process would also extend the life of the coal reserves, making the United Kingdom self-sufficient in coal reserves for two to four hundred years. Underground coal gasification (UCG) has also been used in the United Kingdom. The procedure injects a mixture of steam and oxygen down a borehole, by which gas is extracted from the coal and brought to the surface. Concern exists that UCG may cause contamination of underground water supplies in onshore locations and collapse of the burned-out coal seams both on and off shore. Also, the United Kingdom has been involved in studies to use gasification to extract coal gas from the coal found in the southern North Sea.

Oil

Oil, the liquid form of petroleum, is an important for the United Kingdom, a country that the EIA reports was, as of 2016, the second-largest producer of petroleum and other liquids out of those European countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In 2023, the United Kingdom had roughly 1.5 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves. The majority of these reserves are located in the North Sea. The greatest oil reserves in the North Sea are in the United Kingdom continental shelf. However, significant oil reserves also exist north of the Shetland Islands. Additional, although smaller, reserves are in the North Atlantic. The United Kingdom also has a significant onshore reserve located at Wytch Farm field. This is the largest onshore oil deposit in Europe.

Most of the oil reserves of the United Kingdom were discovered in the 1970s. Production reached its peak by 1999 and declined afterward. In 2005, oil production in the United Kingdom had declined by 37 percent from that of 1999. In response to this situation, oil companies began using new technology to increase production at existing fields, and smaller deposits have been exploited.

Natural Gas

Natural gas is a fossil fuel. It is a mixture of hydrocarbon gases; methane is the primary gas. Natural gas is combustible. When natural gas is burned, it emits a smaller amount of environmentally harmful pollutants than either coal or oil. In 2024, the United Kingdom was the second-largest producer of natural gas in Europe. As of 2022, according to the World Factbook, the United Kingdom’s proven reserves of natural gas were 180.661 billion cubic meters, one of the largest in the world. The major natural gas reserves are located in the North Sea, particularly in the Shearwater-Elgin area of the Southern Gas Basin. The natural gas in the North Sea was discovered in 1967. There are also natural gas deposits in the Irish Sea.

Natural gas has become a vital domestic source of energy because it plays an important role in the production of electricity and is used extensively as a source of energy in industry. It is replacing coal as the fuel of choice for power stations. Beginning with the move to privatization of company ownership in 1979, private companies have been in charge of the United Kingdom’s domestic gas sector. There are several pipelines that transport natural gas from the offshore fields into the country for distribution.

Potash

Potash is used primarily in making fertilizers; it is produced from various potassium compounds in which the potassium is water soluble, including potassium carbonate and potassium oxide. Potash is produced either from underground mines, which are the most common, or from solution mining. It is then milled and refined in processing plants that separate the potassium chloride from the halite (salt) and process it into potash. In the United Kingdom, for many years, approximately one-half of the potash was mined at the Boulby Mine, which also eventually began producing polyhalite, located on the North York Moors. The mine is 1,400 meters deep and is located in the Zechstein basin. The potash mined at Boulby is all from sylvinite (potassium chloride and halite mechanically bound together). The mine has a production capacity of one million metric tons per year. However, in 2018, the operator of the mine announced that it would be switching to focus on the production of polyhalite.

Salt

Rock salt, also called halite, is formed in large crystals in deep mines. In the United Kingdom, there are three mines where salt is commercially mined. They are located at Winsford, Cheshire, England; at Boulby in North Yorkshire, England; and at Kilroot near Carrickfergus in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. There are two methods used for mining rock salt in the UK mines: cut-and-blast mining and continuous mining. Both methods use a “room and pillar” mine layout. As the name implies, the salt is removed in such a fashion that large salt pillars are left in place to support the ceilings and large rooms are created. The salt produced by the mines is commonly called “grit.” It is used to deice roads in winter. The mine at Winsford is the largest mine. The rock salt mine is a deep mine where the mining operations are carried out at more than 150 meters underground. The mine annually produces approximately one million metric tons of salt.

Clays

Industrial minerals are a group of minerals that are used in the manufacturing industry, in construction, and in agriculture. Both raw materials and chemical feedstocks are derived from them. The clays are an important part of the nonmetallic minerals produced in the United Kingdom and include ball clay, fire clay, brick clay, and ceramic clay. In the United Kingdom, brick is used extensively for building; fire clay is the primary material used in roof tiles and drainage pipes; ceramic clay, as the name implies, is used in the production of ceramics.

Ball clay is one of the most important clays both internationally and domestically. It is used in making whiteware ceramic, which includes sanitary ware. Deposits of ball clay in the United Kingdom are relatively scarce. The largest deposits are found in the Wareham basin of East Dorset. There are also small deposits in two areas close to Devon. There are strict restrictions on mining in the Wareham basin, since it is also a major area of of habitat, especially for birds.

Limestone, Chalk, Dolomite

Limestone, chalk, and dolomite are all rock primarily composed of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃). The amount of magnesium carbonate contained in the rock determines its classification as or dolomite. Chalk is fine-grained limestone. Most limestone also contains some impurities, including sand, clay, and iron. Most industrial-quality limestone has small amounts of impurities; however, depending upon the use for which the limestone is intended, certain impurities are not only desirable but necessary.

The primary use of limestone in the United Kingdom is in construction. Limestone is used as a building and as a raw material in making cement. Limestone used in industry and agriculture is referred to as industrial limestone. This limestone has a wide variety of uses. It is used in the manufacture of iron, steel, and glass; in sugar refining; and in several chemical processes. In agriculture, the primary use of limestone is to make lime by calcination of the limestone so that it can be used as fertilizer. Each metric ton of lime produced requires the calcination of approximately 1.7 metric tons of limestone. Tunstead at Derbyshire is the major producer of lime and chemical stone, a form of quicklime, used in industry in the United Kingdom.

According to the British Geological Survey, in 2014, the United Kingdom produced over 66 million metric tons of limestone and 3 million metric tons of chalk. The domestic market is the major market for limestone, but the United Kingdom does export some limestone.

Dolomite is used much like limestone. Its primary use is in construction, where it is often used in place of limestone. Industrial dolomite is used in making iron, steel, and glass. While dolomite continues to be important in its calcinated form in the manufacture of glass, new techniques in iron and steel manufacturing have reduced its use and, consequently, the demand for industrial dolomite has decreased. Dolomite, both calcinated and raw, is used in the making of aglime, which farmers used to reduce soil acidity. Almost all of the dolomite quarried in the United Kingdom comes from the Permian deposits in Durham, Derbyshire, and South Yorkshire. The United Kingdom's dolomite import partners are Norway and Spain. The dolomite imported is of the quality needed for glassmaking; it is high in purity and low in iron. Exports include both agricultural dolomite and calcinated dolomite to the Republic of Ireland, the Côte d’Ivoire, the Netherlands, Germany, and Turkey. The calcinated dolomite exported to Turkey and Germany is used to make refractory bricks that are no longer made in the United Kingdom.

Other Resources

Although the United Kingdom has a large variety of minerals, few of them are mined. There is some mining of tin and lead in deep mines in Scotland, England, and Wales. A small quantity of silver, found in combination with lead, is mined. Zinc, tin, iron ore, and copper are all produced in small quantities.

The coal deposits of north-central England and the iron deposits of the Pennines area played an important role in the country’s early industrialization. Iron-ore production in the Pennines area has virtually ceased, although there is still a small amount of iron ore mined in other regions. Tin mining was an important industry in England until after World War II. The last of the tin mines in Cornwall was closed in 1998.

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