Oil and Rhetoric

It has been a steep learning curve for me this week on the hustings trail.  From an nervous beginning at Portobello, through Craigentinny (with the en masse of socialist candidates) ending last night at Craigmillar; after which the Conservative spokesman Scott Douglas was kind enough to say “you are getting the hang of it.”  I have to pay tribute to all who have participated though; the organisers have worked hard and so far all the debates have taken place in a courteous manner: that is how politics should be. 

That is not to say though we agree with each other; far from it.   It was at Craigentinny that the SNP first laboured their point about oil, saying that throughout the past decades we have all been told that it has been running out but really there is just as much more oil there still to come than we have already pumped out.  Being fifteen years in the oil industry, this is an area in which I can claim some knowledge in so at the Craigmillar hustings I was able to treat the audience to the graph below.

Source: Department of Energy and Climate Change website

https://www.og.decc.gov.uk/information/bb_updates/chapters/production_projections.pdf

As you can see, production is steadily declining and is continuing to do so.  2010 shows oil to be about 55% down from peak and gas production has halved.  By itself though it does not disprove the SNP claims that there is still just as much more oil to come out than has already being produced.  That comes from figures for gas and oil. 

Using the DECC most optimistic figures, cumulative gas production by the end of 2009 is 2822 billion cubic metres (bcm).  Maximum estimated possible recovery is 3122 bcm.  In other words, over 90% of the UK’s gas has already been produced.

But the SNP never talk about gas, only oil.  These are the figures.  Cumulative oil production by the end of 2009 is 3383 million tonnes.  Again using the maximum estimate for recoverable oil (and that includes new exploration west of Shetland) the figure is 4494 million tonnes.  At best 75% of the oil is already out and by using the figures for proven and possible (4152 million tonnes) it is more likely that over 80% of the UK’s oil has already been produced.

When it comes to talking economics, it is about time that the SNP stops using the oil and gas industry as some kind of “get out of jail free card”.  The cry always goes up though of “what about Norway?”  Sadly with are not in Norway’s fortunate and wise position.  They have been saving from Day One for the time when the oil runs out.  I am not going to defend Westminster’s management of our energy industries.  Successive Conservative and Labour governments have been short-sighted and destructive with their demands for production and destabilising tax raids upon the industry.  

As a nation Scotland has to look to a rapidly-approaching future that is without oil.  The SNP ought to aware of that because to argue anything different is, being generous, to be in nothing less than a state of denial.