is a vindication that there are significant development opportunities still available for the right firm."The UK Offshore Operators Association said there were 28 billion barrels of oil and gas still to recover.Peter Davies, BP's chief economist, said: "Proved reserves of oil, gas and coal remain more than adequate to meet the world's growing needs in aggregate for the immediately foreseeable future.". He added that the reversal of the UK's surplus on gas was a "price to be paid" for the so-called "dash for gas" during the Eighties miners' strike when the Government switched to gas from coal for electricity generation.The Department of Trade and Industry dismissed the concerns over oil running out, pointing to its own figures yesterday showing applications for new North Sea oil and gas licences. "Now they need to buy it back at more than twice the price they sold it at."He said the running down of oil would present the Government with problems for its current account - the difference between money coming in and going out of the economy - and for its future economic performance."Such a dramatic change in the economy makes it hard to balance things. When the oil industry went up it forced money away from other sectors, but when it goes down there's nothing to compensate for it," Mr Aleklett said. The drop of 230,000 barrels a day was the biggest fall of any oil producing nation.Its annual statistical survey also showed that the UK became a net importer of gas for the first time last year.

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Last year government figures showed the UK had fallen into an oil deficit for two months in the autumn for the first time since 1991.Kjell Aleklett, the president of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, said the UK Government's forecasts showed oil production falling one-third from its peak by 2020. "The UK produced most of its oil when it was cheap and they sold it for cheap money," he said. Britain suffered the steepest fall in oil production of any country last year, according to a report yesterday that will fuel fears of an end of the era of North Sea oil revenues. BP, the global oil giant, said North Sea production fell by 10 per cent last year. Forgeard said Airbus would not give up its right to refundable launch aid automatically but could be persuaded to do so if Boeing agreed to end all forms of non-refundable aid..

Forgeard said the reason it had decided to postpone the launch of the new A350 aircraft until September was to try to facilitate a deal between the US and EU before the World Trade Organisation rules on the dispute, potentially triggering punitive sanctions by both sides.Airbus has applied for €1.6bn of launch aid from the British, French, German and Spanish governments towards the €4.35bn cost of developing the A350 - a competitor to the new Boeing 787.M. Mr Platt said he had been concerned this would deter candidates from coming forward from outside the company but this had not proved the case.Meanwhile, Mike Turner, the chief executive of BAE Systems, warned that the vacuum at the top of Airbus could pose serious problems unless it named a successor to Noel Forgeard quickly M. Forgeard is due to become joint chief executive of the majority Airbus shareholder EADS but a spat involving the French government and EADS' German shareholders has thrown the management succession at both companies into chaos.BAE has a veto over the Airbus appointment because of its 20 per cent stake in the European aircraft manufacturer. Mr Turner said he was "concerned but not surprised" over the row, adding: "We can survive a week or two without a new chief executive but I would not like to see it go beyond that." Gustav Humbert, Airbus's chief operating officer, has been lined up to take the chief executive's job but has not been formally appointed.Separately, Airbus offered to surrender its right to refundable launch aid yesterday provided Boeing gave up all forms of government aid as well.But the proposal, a fresh attempt to avert a hugely damaging trade dispute between Europe and the United States, was immediately rejected by Boeing, which said Airbus would have to agree to end launch aid as a pre-condition for the two sides sitting down to talk.Speaking at the Paris Airshow, M.