London (Platts)--28Jul2011/628 am EDT/1028 GMT

UK crude oil production fell 10.9% month-on-month in May to 1 million b/d, the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change said Thursday.

The output figure was also down 20.2% on May 2010, the data showed, due to maintenance-related outages at North Sea crude oil fields.

"This is the second consecutive month of record decreases in production and the first time that over 20% has been lost on the corresponding period of the previous year. As last month, the decrease stems from maintenance related work on a number of fields," the DECC said.

UK crude production has averaged 1.1 million b/d in the first five months of the year, the lowest figure recorded since data began to be compiled in 1995.

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UK oil production has fallen steadily since reaching a peak in 1999.

In addition, the Buzzard oil field has been experiencing production difficulties all year caused by a faulty cooling system on a platform there, helping to explain the sharp fall this year.

Buzzard is situated in the Moray Firth Basin of the North Sea, some 100 km northeast of Aberdeen, Scotland. It makes up about a third of Forties crude production.

Forties is one of four crude grades--along with Brent, Oseberg and Ekofisk--that are used as a price benchmark for crude oil in Europe.

In other data, the DECC also said UK crude oil exports were down 22.1% to 0.7 million b/d in the first five months of the year, whereas exports of oil products were up by 14.9% to 11.415 million mt.

--Olivier Lejeune, olivier_lejeune@platts.com