NORTH Sea oil and gas industry leaders have called on Philip Hammond to act urgently to help reverse the potentially disastrous slump in activity in the area triggered by the crude price slump.
Oil & Gas UK said the Chancellor could use his Autumn Statement later this month to provide a vital spur for the North Sea where billions of barrels reserves may be left undeveloped unless investment increases.
The chief executive of the trade body, Deirdre Michie, warned: “Exploration and development drilling has fallen to record lows and industry figures reveal a drought of new investment approved in 2016 and 2017 looks no better.”
Oil & Gas UK has forecast the downturn will cost around 120,000 jobs by the end of this year.
The organisation said Mr Hammond could encourage new entrants to buy North Sea assets by confirming they will be able to claim tax relief on the cost of decommissioning fields when they run dry.
While there may be around 20 billion barrels to be recovered from the North Sea, many fields are controlled by firms with no plans to develop them.
Oil & Gas UK wants firms to get tax breaks to encourage them to increase output from producing fields.
The Government should re-affirm its commitment to having a more competitive and predictable tax regime.
Ministers must help raise awareness of the capability of the supply chain at home and overseas.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here