re the independence thing,, if you had been interested then you would no doubt know that the oil income to scotland is less than 12% of scottish GDP.. no doubt it would have hurt a little but not a dissaster.
it was actually a fella called sween who's in league with westminster that try'd to feck the industry back in the day.
Coz the SNP are not racists, whereas the BNP are. Different type of nationalism. SNP are inclusive whereas the bnp are just fuckwits. Dont get me wrong, the snp are still a bunch of arrun jumper wearing beardy idealists into country dancing and twee traditionalism but theyre not nazi halfwits.
The North Sea Oil industry competes for investment just like anywhere else. Globally the easy oil has already been found and produced, what that means is that future oil (energy) will be more expensive than what has gone previously. In another thread 749er basically said 'good riddance to BP and welcome to smaller innovative companies using new techniques to extend field life'. What that means in practice is companies without the good governance of BP taking over ageing corroded platforms and cost cutting to produce relatively low volumes of crude to make a return on their investment. Some platforms, I am sure, are being run at or below break even to avoid the massive decommissioning costs associated with shutting the fields down. Whether the decommissioning costs of the North Sea eventually falls on the Uk taxpayer we will have to see but it reminds me of the question about bears shitting in the woods. I will be very surprised if all of these small players who have taken over ageing NS assets will be there at the end to pick up the costs. North Sea Oil will be around for decades to come but it's glory days are already over. The price of oil is determined by supply and demand, just like any other commodity, and oversupply is currently depressing prices. I firmly believe that the US fracking revolution will turn out to be a mirage and is currently being massively overhyped. What industry needs is stability upon which to plan and invest and it just isn't getting it. This all fits in with the "End of Growth" paradigm.
check out the history of whiskie, it was the english king that saved it due to his love of the then banned highland malts. dude get an education. where does the expression rot gut come from, give you a clue sween.
In unregulated markets prices are determined by supply and demand, as you rightly say. Unfortunately there is a mechanism whereby high prices lead to increased supply, which leads to prices dropping below the cost of production, which leads to reduced production, which leads to high prices, ... and so on round and round. A kind of cyclical roller-coaster effect starts and builds up with increasing amplitude, until it reaches eventual catastrophe. The stability which you mention, and which is so critical in an industry with high start-up investment and long lead-in times, is not to be found in a world-wide market with no effective regulation. Capitalism has many great advantages, to be sure, but it also has severe drawbacks and the oil market illustrates one of them.
This is exacerbated by peak oil, the increasing environmental costs and decommissioning costs for the North Sea. I sincerely hope that North Sea platforms are cleaned up and toppled where they stand rather than be removed in their entirety. The costs would be significantly lower and there would be the added benefit of creating artificial reefs that would be of benefit to fish stocks. Let's hope that well meaning but poorly informed greenies don't get to determine the policy.
I'm on the brent delta at the moment (due to shit weather) and it's being decommissioned as we speak. I was informed when I first came on that when this platform was installed a slush fund was put aside for decommissioning but the government have spent that and now us tax payers are footing/assisting with the bill. Out of 4 brent platforms only 1 is still producing and that will be shut down soon.
