Meeting of the Parliament 20 January 2016
The short and simple answer is that under the immense pressure of the oil price, companies have finally begun to address issues of efficiency that they failed to address in past years.
I hope that the Scottish Government will support the Oil and Gas Authority, as the regulator that is charged with changing the culture of the UK oil and gas industry towards greater co-operation, encouraging it to continue to share risk and to extend the life of key infrastructure offshore, as happened through investment in exploration over the past few months.
Ministers should support the transfer of knowledge, skills and technologies from production to decommissioning and the big new opportunities such as offshore wind, but they should do so in the context of maximising the economic recovery of oil, rather than closing the industry down. They should carry forward the work of planning where jobs in Scotland will come from in future generations, without throwing away the jobs and businesses that we have here today.
I move amendment S4M-15356.1, to leave out from first “considers” to end and insert:
“notes that, while production of oil and gas from the UK Continental Shelf (UKCS) is in long-term decline, the sector remains critical to the success of the Scottish economy, not least in providing the skills, technology and experience required to enable the development of infrastructure for the low-carbon economy of the future; calls on the Scottish Government to undertake an urgent and detailed assessment of the impact of the current low oil price on the strength and stability of the Scottish economy; agrees with the conclusion of the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee that ‘it is vital for the Scottish economy that Governments, the industry and the trade unions continue to work ever more closely together in order to ensure that the objective of maximising economic recovery of oil and gas from the UKCS is fulfilled’ and calls for further development of the role of the Oil and Gas Authority toward that end; recognises that early action is required to enable Scotland’s energy sector to take future opportunities, including the deployment of offshore wind and marine energy and the decommissioning of offshore oil and gas, and calls on the Scottish Government to develop a coherent economic strategy to support renewable energy, the creation of new low-carbon jobs and the use of low-carbon technology in infrastructure development as part of a just transition toward a new low-carbon economy in the future.”
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