Bishop Hill Picking losers
Jun 17, 2015 Energy: gas Nicola Sturgeon is apparently to demand that the UK government provide incentives for North Sea oil and gas exploration. Given that the North Sea cannot compete in the face of the glut of energy from the Middle East and the unconventionals, this would appear to seem to be more a futile gesture than an idea that might have some practical effect.
And while the sentiment of the proposal is sound enough, you have to wonder about the decision of the Holyrood administration to back yesterday's fossil fuel industry, while putting stumbling blocks in the way of tomorrow's. I'm thinking of course of the moratorium on unconventional oil and gas development north of the border.
Put alongside her all-out support for renewables, it's hard to avoid the impression that Ms Sturgeon loves a loser.
Reader Comments (52)
She's a typical two-faced politician with no scruples. She has no mandate to demand anything from the UK voters. Her party has less legitimacy than UKIP.
As leader of the NSSWP**, she has done her best to support the Corporatist-fascist Renewables' Corporations intent on plastering the Highlands with windmills to rape the English Poor by the subsidies. However, the decision to stop subsidising those windmills has ensured that her Party can't use them to replace N. Sea Oil.
So, the only alternative is to get English Money to invest in N. Sea oil, a desperate last ploy.
**compare these initials with the NSDAP on which model her Party was based in 1934....:o)
No problem. Just tell her that you can't subsidise both renewables and North Sea exploration, and ask her to choose one.
She will demand both.
Repeat statement 1.
Keep this up until she makes up her mind or hell freezes over, whichever comes soonest. That will delay any decision until the SNP disappears up their [snip].
Posted this to the facebook group: Scotland's Right
Rubbish. The North Sea has always had to deal with the Middle East oil glut (who btw are just as capable of switching the supply off when they feel like it) and the US fracking break-even oil price is higher than that of the North Sea.
It was Osborne's tax hikes that halted exploration, not the oil price, which is now back in the mid-sixties - easily high enough to support investment. What Sturgeon wants, not demands, is 'no new taxes' and some kind of active plan to keep the industry alive because until we start using something else for transport and heating then oil and gas will be needed from every source possible, hence it cannot be left to the fickle vagaries of the marketplace or subject to more tax siphoning from the treasury. ie The main problem is in trying to prevent the Tory numpties from killing this industry as well as all the others with their dumb-arse 'invisible hand ' ideology.
As for the moratorium on planning permits - Sturgeon met with Ineos the same day it was announced and Ineos then seemed happy enough and stopped complaining. Read into that what you will but the greens think it means the moratorium is very temporary.
As for wind energy, well there are two sides to every story on that. Folk just prefer whichever story fills their preconceived notions. The greens say it doesn't need subsidies any more so we should take them at their word.
On a serious note, there are a lot of people in the NE of Scotland who rely on North Sea oil. However, whereas I'm not against easing tax, the government and public-sector have an appalling record where they dabble in any industry.
As for oil - I cannot fathom the mentality that simultaneously promotes oil and wind. It is so blatantly hypocritical to be promoting oil drilling as well as pushing wind. And it really shows what lackies we have in the Scottish press that they've never been called out over this.
if you support oil - you must be against wind subsidies. If you support wind - you must be against oil. You have some integrity if you hold either position, but you have none if like the SNP to support both.
James G
"It was Osborne's tax hikes that halted exploration"
"Tory numpties from killing this industry as well as all the others with their dumb-arse 'invisible hand ' ideology"
Distorting the market with a tax is not "invisible hand" If you are going to contradict yourself, try not to do it in the same paragraph, it makes you look ineffectual!
But but but the Grauniad says we are already subsidising fossil fuels.
Is somebody telling lies?
If Sturgeon just wants more jobs for Scotland, and/or cheap reliable electricity for Scotland (both noble causes), then she should tell the Greens to Blob off.
There's a marketing adage: Nothing happens until something is sold.
Sturgeon 'sold' the SNP to the Scottish electorate; now she has to try to keep them happy.
Perhaps she should hike Scotland's tuition fees, or amend its health policies, to pay for her desired North Sea development incentives.
Would have been interesting to see what would have happened if they had of attained Independence.
With a probable long term drop in oil revenue, thanks to the Americans, would there have been a scramble to have another vote or sizeable loans from the IMF !
Time to put up taxes in Scotland NOT MORE subsidies A good test to stand on your own feet independendantly
IIRC the shale deposits extend offshore.... at least one of DECC's actual unconventional gas / oil "non ecoactivist" specialists is well aware of it.
Wee Kranky might be able to have her cake etc...
The engineering challenges consequent from moving to doing a lot more fracking offshore would give NE companies something of a global lead....
Offshore shale though is said to be reliant on $200 / barrel - that however ain't gonna happen any time soon.....
JamesG - your first paragraph is twaddle. After the gushers - the North Sea has had a very bumpy ride. Venezuela needs to simply keep pumping with Iran on the blocks and straining to export - the prognosis for the North Sea is
quitevery bleak.North Sea "Fracking"
@JamesG: the windmills with Diesel STOR are a technological failure. Not only do they use more fossil fuel for their tranche of energy in our Grid, taking account of all consequential energy losses, they have been a vehicle to enrich the Mafia at the expense of the poor, the most regressive tax in History.
And the blatant cover of the SNP aka NSSWP has been used by the 200 businessmen behind Salmond who have now also destroyed the Scots' tourist industry in many places.
What we are seeing is a well-deserved rapid denouement of the silly Scots who swallowed SNP guff and the dissemblers who didn't even imagine there is near zero CO2-AGW. No professional scientist accepts the claim of 40% extra energy in the climate models; obvious in 1981_Hansen_etal.pdf, the start of the 33 K GHE fraud.
tomo, if the North Sea is currently unprofitable, due to low oil prices, couldn't they just wait for Peak Oil to occur, which according to experts writing in the Grauniad has been imminent for years, so it really must be absolutely certain to happen anytime about now ish, or maybe the week after.
Meanwhile unreliable energy experts writing anywhere they can, are terrified that Peak Subsidy has happened, and no one shares their frustration that an abundant supply of free money is running out.
...you have to wonder about the decision of the Holyrood administration to back yesterday's fossil fuel industry, while putting stumbling blocks in the way of tomorrow's....
This is normal behaviour for ALL of humanity, when faced with a new technology.
The problem is that the 'old' technology will employ many people, and will have rich influential people in its ranks, and will have a well-exercised relationship with politicians and set of lobbyists. Whenever any new technology arrives, the establishment who depend on the old technology will fight a rearguard action trying to suppress the new competition by any means possible.
This happened, for example, when the automobile took over from the carriage. Remember the Locomotive act of 1865?Wisconsin - the 'Dairy State' - banned margarine in 1895, and has only recently (2011!) allowed restaurants to serve it. You see this effect everywhere. You have to wait for the opposition to die off - in some cases literally.It's why Max Planck said that science advances one funeral at a time.
I predict that it will be accepted that human-generated CO2 does not cause major climate damage sometime around 2055.
golf charlie
I don't know if every North Sea field is unprofitable or simply not as profitable - the arithmentic being something that O&G accountants are less than keen to render transparent. If it's unprofitable the smaller companies operating marginal fields left by the majors will simply leave them to corrode away... ( to the bleating of GMG et al)
Peak subsidy? eesh - long past time the subsidy contracts had penalty clauses where if they don't achieve a guaranteed load factor (and sort out their own over supply) the subsidy turns into a fine....
@Dodgy Geezer Max Planck said that "science advances one funeral at a time". - gold that is....
JamesG,
You need to get your facts straight. In 2011 Osborne raised the Supplementary Charge on oil companies ring fence profits. This means the charge only applied to profits and only on ring fenced producing fields. It had nothing to do with exploration and I can say from first hand experience it had little or no impact on exploration or general activity in 2011. My business relies completely on those types of activities and it was pretty much business as usual since 2011 until the oil price crash of 2014. Because of the oil price crash, business has been hit hard, and I mean VERY hard, and lots of people have lost their jobs, both here and worldwide.
It is the oil price that has killed current North Sea investment, not Osborne. And of course Osborne has responded with some tax reductions in March this year. The oil and service companies all over the world got pretty fat on $110/bbl oil and have made huge cuts in staff and overheads in response to the oil price crash. Layoff and cost reduction on staff alone are around 10 - 15% and lots of projects and studies have been cut. That's what you do when the rate of return on your investment is unacceptable.
Contrary to your claim about a Middle East oil glut, there does not appear to be such a situation. In fact, OPEC production figures have been pretty steady since the beginning of 2013, they actually increased from a low of 30.81M in March 2011 to a peak 33.75M in April 2012, after which they fell back slightly to a fairly steady production plateau of around 32.50M since December 2012. Hardly a "Middle East oil glut". You need to look elsewhere for the reasons behind the oil price crash. Google is your friend.
Pretty much all non-OPEC oil exploration and production is at higher cost than OPEC. The North Sea is no exception. After making major cuts to overheads, North Sea operators may be able to make money at $60-65/bbl, but its quite tight for them and there is no fat. Exploration is severely curtailed at this price. In addition, you have to consider the rising cost of maintaining old infrastructure and the cost of field abandonment, now becoming significant given the age of many North Sea Fields. The North Sea is a very mature and declining oil and gas province. It is a very safe environment, but that also increase costs. It is a hostile environment, which makes rigs and drilling more expensive. Without high oil prices even near field developments are going to be shelved until the economics improve. It is unlikely to be "business as usual" unless oil rallies back to about $75 - $85/bbl and steadies there.
Max Roberts
No contradiction. Thatcherites caused the first de-industrialisation with their flawed 'invisible hand' ideology. Osborne seems to want to finish the job by bleeding the rest dry.
tomo
No twaddle. I provided only facts. Yes it has been a bumpy ride and yes it looks bleak currently - if you ignore the new big strike of BP of October last - but we've been here many times before yet the industry is still there and the Wood review reckons it could be for a long time yet if the government stop hindering and start helping. See...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11553769/BP-sees-massive-shock-for-North-Sea-as-oil-glut-deepens.html
"a study by the International Monetary Fund showing that the UK’s oil and gas industry has the highest cost structure of any major region in the world - if taxes are included - and is the most vulnerable to a prolonged downturn. "
So it is not about some kind of subsidy here....just remove some of those extra costs.
And yes Iran, Russia, USA, Venezuela etc, etc. But if anyone had managed to predict the current oil price cut then I'd believe they might be able to predict the future for the oil industry. So did you predict it tomo? I bet not! All we are sure of is that we need oil and gas and the middle East and Russia are run by unpredictable despots. Meantime anyone who thinks that oil is some simple market-driven supply an demand issue needs to look at the history of Opec (of which the C means cartel btw).
NCC
No tourism has been lost due to windmills - you just made that up! Some of us even think they are quite nice looking - certainly nicer than the pylons that dot our countryside but which most folk don't seem to mind.
////////
As for governments tampering in oil; gimme a break, most of the oil companies worldwide are owned by governments and all of them seem to have made tidy profits. Again this type of criticism is just ideological bias.
Oh and btw, the oil prices are not particularly low. They were just ridiculously high for too long. I was almost alone in predicting an oil price drop in 2007 after it hit record highs while all the so-called commodity 'experts' were predicting $200+ a barrel for the long-term. I am on record as stating that their natural level was $80 to $100 and that they would fall back down to that range. ie pretty much where they stayed until recently. Did any of the 'experts' here predict that? When it comes to the oil industry, prediction is a mugs game because Opec holds most of the cards but pessimism has always been misplaced in the past and the experts have always been dumbfounded by events.
Osborne has an opportunity to double-down on Scottish discomfort.
1. No serious changes to existing oil subsidies, which will impact Scotland harder than the UK as a whole.
2. England goes for shale properly, while Scotland procrastinates. (and Wales commit economic suicide by their moratorium, too)
Result: a greater tax take in England with more jobs and economy-boosting wealth flowing from shale gas than in Scotland and Wales combined. After that any altered stance would require a major climb down from the SNP & Welsh.
Btw, Osborne put in a very respectable performance today at PMQ's and didn't do himself any harm at all.
GC and Tomo,
UK North Sea has the highest operating costs in the world, averaging out at about $40/bbl. But these are operating costs, so if these are currently producing fields they will still be profitable at $60-$65/bbl (and the profits taxed at up to 82%!). But note we are talking about operating costs, not full life cycle costs which would include exploration and capital investment (eg platforms).
So in a low oil price environment short term activities such as drilling exploration are deferred until the price is right again. But oil companies understand risk, understand how to respond to oil price changes and also plan long term (5, 10 or even 30 years) into the future. In 1999 the oil price dipped to just under $10/bbl. The impact was enormous. The oil company I worked for made 60% of its staff redundant and it never really recovered before being taken over just a couple of years later.
Operating costs in OPEC are very low, and in fact Countries like Saudi Arabia have operating costs as low as $5-$6/bbl. Even Russia has similar low operating costs.
Economics, oil exploration and dwindling oil fields in inaccessible parts.
This is just another confection of 'gunslinger stand off' politics, the wee bonnie princess Nicola, is in no position to demand aught.
Though, it may be true that the UK.gov could allow more tax breaks for north sea development.
Ah but.........is it not also true that, oil companies, surely, will go where the opportunities, conditions, regions are more conducive to exploration and exploitation - I mean for example, there has been a big 'find' if the evidence is to be believed and who could gainsay it - in the home counties no less. Hells teeth - in Sussex - well [sorry] all over South East England actually and quite recently - I mean wee-re does ye you wanna drill - the north sea in a force 10 in January or, on the South Downs?
thinkingscientist
Well firstly it was BH who spoke of an oil glut, not me. but then again so does the national media on the page I linked to previously. Opec controls the oil supply so there might be an oil shortage next year if they happen to feel like getting back to $100 a barrel. This is not a normal supply/demand market!
Secondly try and keep up to date. I know it's difficult with so many new oil taxes coming from Osborne!
http://snp.org/media-centre/news/2014/mar/osbornes-oil-exploration-tax-slammed
“George Osborne’s Oil Exploration Tax is yet another ill-thought out tax bombshell from a UK Government looking to use the North Sea as a cash cow", etc, etc.
Thirdly, Osborne et al just ignored the Wood review that explicitly warned about a coming crisis. Instead of cutting taxes as recommended in the review they increased them. so don't talk now about minor cuts that are too little too late.
Fourthly this is a contraction that was inevitable after the previous boom caused by overly high oil prices. We've seen this before countless times. Alas people have such short memories. Structurally the only problem is the high-cost regime imposed by Osborne and the clueless who preceded him. The oil price is not either historically high or low right now! And while low oil prices might hurt the oil industry temporarily but it is just magical for the rest of the economy!
Lastly no other party knows more about the oil industry than the SNP. You can take that to the bank! The Tories only see a cash cow and Ukip knows dick-all.
thinkingscientist, thanks for that, I am aware that North Sea oil was only developed after the 73-74 OPEC price hike, made it economic.
Energy is a market governed by price fixing, rather than supply and demand. Shale gas has reversed that. Those on the political left do not understand, hence the Grauniads "Keep it in the Ground" campaign, is a public opinion loser, as soon as anyone who has to pay for power, is allowed to think for themselves.
Mike H
There is no hypocrisy in supporting both wind energy and the oil industries unless you can somehow use wind energy for running your car. As per DECC, the plan is to avoid any cuts in transport and heating fuels until they produce an electricity infrastructure and capacity that supports electric cars and electric heating. ie they are concentrating on power generation to achieve the first tranche of emissions reduction. Of course they are seemingly doing zero to achieve this miracle but they cannot be accused of hypocrisy - just unrealistic. While the government is not for turning though, the SNP does seem at least to be facing the fact that that power is running short. It isn't too many windmills that worry me, it is the lack of anything else.
JamesG,
As Malcolm Webb said:
That's the real issue. Petroleum Revenue Tax arose from the Oil Taxation Act 1975 introduced by Harold Wilson's Labour government. PRT was charged at 75% on the field profits.
In 1993 PRT was abolished for all new field developments and the rate of PRT was reduced to 50% for all existing fields. Looks to me like that change to reduce the tax was made under a Tory government and a Tory Chancellor.
In 2002 a Labour Chancellor called Gordon Brown introduced the supplementary charge, an additional rate to Corporation Tax paid by oil companies. The supplement was 10% to the standard 30% rate of corporation tax (making it 40%).
Gordon Brown increased the supplement to 20% (making it 50%), effective January 2006.
Finally the supplementary charge was increased to 32% (making it 62% overall) by Osborne in 2011. At a time when the country is in terrible financial circumstances and the Tory government is trying to balance the books. The new rate was at a time when oil prices were high, so it looked as though the industry could absorb some of the cost at least. Since then oil price has crashed and circumstances have changed.
So rather than direct us with a link to SNP.org and making sneering jibes about "Tory numpties", how about a bit more of the full historical picture, of an oil industry being consistently super-taxed by labour chancellor's? And one of them Scottish to boot.
Couldn't we have a Lands End to John O' Groats car race, for solar and wind powered cars?
It would sort the Real Men from the dreamers. Real Men would realise that they might aswell push the car.
Nicola is (as yet) one of the few ScotNats to have not yet added their name to Early Day Motion 90:
http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2015-16/90
Perhaps it's a hypocrisy test?
The one thing that mystifies me (well, it doesn't really, having lived with the SNP for long enough) is the way they manage to finesse the true effect and true cost of their energy policy.
Salmond wanted 100% of Scotland's electricity generated by renewables and he had the most ambitious CO2 reduction target in the world (as far as I can judge). I've heard no suggestion that the Nippy Sweetie has made any changes to that plan.
Even assuming that it were possible (which I seriously doubt) for Scotland to generate 100% of its current electricity demand using windmills, solar power (!), and hydro an awful lot more things would have to happen before the CO2 target could be met — electric heating to replace gas and electric cars to replace petrol are two obvious examples.
So exactly how much more electricity will need to be generated and how many more windmills and solar panels are going to have disfigure the Scottish countryside to cater for that significantly increased demand?
And how many Scots are going to die when there is no electricity because the whole of Europe (just about) is sitting under a blocking high and there is no wind and the temperature is hovering around -5°?* And how much is all this going to cost, anyway?
*And don't say, "Ach, we'll buy some frae the English" because I'm afraid that won't hack it.
JamesG
The reason no tourism has been lost (so far), (or did you make that up?), is because unless you go to the Maldives you cannot escape them. Most people cannot afford to go to the Maldives every year so just go to the usual places, a campsite in France or a Disney in Florida once in a while.
Jun 17, 2015 at 3:13 PM | Unregistered CommenterJamesG
"Again this type of criticism is just ideological bias"
Pots and black kettles come to mind.
Send her a copy of the Guardian and beg her, for the sake of the children, to leave it in the ground....
Never ever turn one's back on opportunity!
No matter how poorly timed it appears, opportunity is opportunity.
Use the money, the latest technology and the brightest scientists, (certainly not the non climastrologist bottom feeders), available and map available resources.
Unless there are renewable miracles in the wings, more fossil fuel is needed. Even the aged Royal Society doomers will demand fossil fuel when they want warmth and travel.
Wanna bet the resulting research papers are cheaper when released than the climatology pay walled nonsense?
Mike Jackson, Salmond expected to ignite Scottish fire, with CO2
@Mike Jackson: the SNP has always intended to export wind energy to rape the English Poor. Their 100% renewables' target depends solely on forcing the English to export nuclear and fossil fuel power to the Scots at half the price.
We need to put phase switches at the border and force their Power Grid to collapse, as it has twice recently.
Longannet's closure will complete the job and the Scots' population can then realise that they have elected really stupid people. The same will happen in England starting just after Christmas and we can kick out Amber Rudd for incompetence.
NCC 1701E, seems a bit unfair on Amber Rudd not to have reversed Ed Miliband's legacy. Luckily for Ed, he was pushed under a bus, before he jumped.
The bus is expected to make a full recovery.
JamesG 3:36, your statement that no party knows more about the oil industry than the SNP, is that another quote from the history books rewritten by the SNP by any chance?
I would certainly agree that the Scots and local communities have experienced the highs and lows, but where does SNP
Knowledge come in to it?
Isn't it the role of Government to pick losers?
After all they have a very good track record.
Maybe she could have a word with Foes Of Earthlings - Scottish Branch which is, in their own mind, saving Scotland from such evils as fossil fuels. If some Scottish institutions including local authorities are choosing to not invest in energy security and jobs e.g. the benefits of fossil fuels, it begs a question as to why Nicola then thinks it okay that the Scottish Oil industry should be underwritten by the rest of us?
http://www.foe-scotland.org.uk/fossilfree
Mick J
"Foes of Earthlings"! I like it.
The best I could ever manage was 'Fiends of the Earth'.
Congratulations on Scotland's first contribution to the European Wine Lake.
Some of it is bound to trickle down into gasohol
http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2015/06/mark-steyn-and-grapes-of-wrath.html
"The greens say it [wind energy] doesn't need subsidies any more so we should take them at their word.
Jun 17, 2015 at 12:34 PM | JamesG "
Check out this link and see that wind energy cannot ever do without subsidy, unless the electricity price rockets up.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/05/12/true-costs-of-wind-electricity/
The words of greens are no more than lies.
> Nicola is (as yet) one of the few ScotNats to have not yet added their name to Early Day Motion 90:
> http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2015-16/90
> Perhaps it's a hypocrisy test?
That'll be because despite her exposure, demands and bluster, she is an MSP, not an MP.
JamesG has all the hallmarks of an SNP supporter, everything is the fault of the Tories/ English/ Westminster, the low oil price has nothing to do with it.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-11/opec-s-biggest-pump-record-oil-with-rally-in-jeopardy-iea-says
Nationalism = Ideology.
Osborne's 2011 measures were not just confined to raising SPD, but also included a number of technical measures including restricting relief on decommissioning, taxation of offshore infrastructure tariff revenue etc., that resulted in some 28 fields closing in the subsequent year, with key infrastructure being lost, leaving some projects stranded, and exploration drilling sharply lower. Production declined by over 400,000 b/d between 2010 and 2012. He was ill advised by the OBR, who failed to understand the consequences: their wrong economic model is a classic. It failed to consider the remaining economic life of the fields in production, assuming that investment behaviour might follow the pattern when the North Sea was still an immature investment province.
Having said that, the damage has been done and even the more recent reversals of some of the measures will not restore the status quo ante - nor will further relaxations requested by Sturgeon.
We should make Scotland independent, whether they like it or not.
Thanks for your contribution, thinkingscientist.
I'd just add that, although Saudi Arabia's extraction costs are low, it's been reckoned that to fund their social programs, they need around $100. They have the cash reserves to carry on at $55 for as good while, but eventually they'd want to force prices up again.
Which makes one think that the high prices were as deliberately contrived, or more contrived, than the lower prices we're seeing now. I'm not sure where an unsanctioned Iran would fit into all this, presumably prices would drop again. And they also have a lot of gas.
On another point, I heard Sturgeon on the news this morning saying something about Shell and Peterhead which presumably is about funding CCS. That isn't going to help anybody much in the rest of the North Sea industry.
Regarding shale: both the SNP and Labour candidates pushed leaflets through my door at the last election, leaflets which both contained pledges to oppose "fracking" in Scotland, by which they seem to mean any attempt to exploit onshore shale or coal seam gas whether it actually involves fracking or not. In Aberdeen North, in a two horse race.
That was what finally cured me of my lifetime addiction to voting Labour and merely confirmed the SNP as a dangerous joke.
Kellydown,
Thanks for your comments. Point about Saudi social program is well made. I have to say I have not yet met anyone in the oil & gas industry who can really see or explain the reason for the crash. Clearly it helps Saudi kill off the fledgling shale gas/export from the US (no-one in our industry saw that possibility of USA being a potential exported 10 years ago) but it also helps undermine eg Russia and perhaps Islamic terrorism.
No-one I know can see any real fundamentals pointing to the crash. Saudi's biggest issue long term is market share, and with the potential for shale gas development all over the world they could entirely lose their swing producer role and be side-lined as countries become much more self sufficient, and potentially with cleaner burning gas too. So much for peak oil - the ultimate potential for hydrocarbons from unconventional plays now looks wide open again.
Two rather apt quotations spring, concerning shale gas the following one:
and of course concerning Peak Oil:
The only other long term view I have heard from oil & gas insiders is whether Saudi Arabia really has the ability to ramp up production much beyond where it is now. They may have very little production capacity in reserve, so if demand does rise again (eg with return of strong economic growth in the world economy), Saudi may not be able to do much about pushing production to control the market and market share.
Nial
Maybe you'll believe the Financial Times then:
http://blogs.ft.com/nick-butler/2014/05/28/the-north-seas-decline-is-a-problem-for-the-whole-uk-not-just-scotland/
"Let us start with the facts. The table below shows the decline in output over the past four years....." [ie before the oil price drop].
"The trend shown in the numbers is crystal clear. Output of oil and gas are both down by 40 per cent since 2010"
"Can production rise again? Certainly. There is plenty of oil and gas left and a lot of infrastructure in place. Technology is enabling recovery rates to rise. Production could be at least stabilised at current levels for several years. The Wood report on the future of the North Sea was optimistic. But months have passed and Sir Ian Wood’s proposals are still stuck in the Department Energy and Climate Change – nominally accepted but not implemented. No wonder that the words “Department of Energy” are now regarded as an oxymoron in Whitehall.
The decline of the past few years is a tragedy because it was avoidable. Mature provinces such as the North Sea need tax regimes that incentivise production of the remaining reserves. There is a case, given the extent of the tax take which goes to the government when development succeeds, for a mechanism which accepts a public share of the risk of new work – a system which has worked well in Norway. The Treasury is supposed to be analysing these issues but again there is no sense of urgency."
Get that? It was avoidable and the government is largely to blame for being asleep at the wheel! So bashing the SNP for reminding the government it is their own fault is just setting your face against reality. Having said that the oil price is going up again. What is the best level? Well a high oil price is good for oil producers but bad for the rest of the economy and vice versa. This is just basic economics. Those oil workers should therefore find a job in the wider economy. The SNP have indeed been proven correct all this time - apart from failing to predict the sudden drop in price to $ 45 which afaik nobody predicted - certainly not the bloviaters here. And no I am not an SNP supporter, I am a supported of facts. Too often this blog is a fact-free zone.
golf Charlie
Is it really up to me to educate you about the history of the SNP position on the North Sea or could you maybe be bothered to look it up yourself. I provided at least one link; there are several more on their site. That they are enthusiastic about wind energy is because lots of folk are advising that it is a great idea and Scotland is the best place in Europe for it. That they believe in thermageddon is down to duplicitous and inadequate scientists who even now cannot admit they are wrong. That they support the North Sea oil industry to an extent unmatched by any other party is bleeding obvious. I'm afraid too much misinformation was put about by the English Tory press - SNP are not the ogres or irresponsible spendthrifts they are made out to be. Under their stewardship the food and drink industry have had a spectacular renaissance. It wasn't by accident - but by many trade missions and events. Plus whatever their policy you will find that they consulted widely and produced reports that are downloadable. You may disagree but you should do the legwork first - not just believe a saddo headline from the 12 year-olds that run the Sun, Mail and Express and increasingly the Telegraph too.
Anyone who wants the numbers for tourism can go to www.visitscotland.com. Though why anyone would believe an obviously unhinged individual about anything is beyond me. It is from characters like these appearing on skeptic blogs that the warmistas form their impression of conspiracy theorists.