Saturday 16 June 2012

100 YEARS OF OIL


Dr Richard Pike, a former oil industry consultant and now the chief executive of the Royal Society of Chemistry, said: "Rather than only getting 20 to 30 billion barrels [from the North Sea] we are probably looking at more than twice that amount."
His analysis is supported by petroleum experts who believe there are some 300 fields off the coast of Britain still to be explored and tapped properly. If energy prices continue to soar, companies will become increasingly willing to tap previously uneconomic oil fields.
A spokesman for UK Oil and Gas, the offshore industry's trade association, said: "The current estimates are that there are around 25 billion barrels left." Everyone laughed like a drain.
Dr Pike claims that the industry knows the true figures but refuses to release them because of commercial secrecy. (Or maybe, Dr Pike, it's because the government has bribed them to lie about it, just like it hid the McCrone Report... You see, once bitten twice shy, and British politicians hardly have a record for veracity, do they?)
Still, Mr Cameron, I imagine the Falkland Islands/Malvinas will be bringing some oil on tap pretty soon, and they seem to want to be British... I expect  that will supply the Great British needs so you can dump us. 


Please dump us. 

7 comments:

  1. tris

    OIL the Nationalists big bazooka or it the the big damp squip.
    Its not going to work this time oh no! the Scots are to wordly wise these days Alex and the or is it alex the snp. along with their fantasy economics/politics are unable to convince/trick the voters on Separating from the UK especially during an economic crisis..

    'fine words butter no parsnips'

    as they say

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  2. tris

    'Boom''Boom'

    that's you being blown out of the north sea


    Mr Rowthorn explained that, economically, much centred on the issue of oil and gas revenue. If revenues remained high, then the fiscal position would be fine but if they did not, then an independent Scotland could be in "a lot of trouble".

    He noted how in the past 25 years oil prices had shown a great deal of volatility. Up to the early 2000s a barrel was $25, then it jumped to $150, dropped to $50, rose back up to $150 and was now around $100.

    Mr Rowthorn told the Lords Economic Affairs Committee price uncertainty was "one of the strongest arguments against independence".

    He said: "Independence could be a great success if oil remains very expensive for quite a long time. Though it must be said, if you look over the 25 to 30-year perspective oil revenues are going to decline almost whatever happens to the price of oil."

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  3. Ah Niko my old mate:

    Indeed, fine words do not butter parsnips in this house, mainly because I can't abide parsnips.

    Do you like parsnips?

    Now carrots and neeps, yes, and mixed together mashed with a little cream, well, that's just bliss on the tongue. But parsnips.... never!

    I remember having to parse that sentence as a school boy. Fine (adjective) words (noun) butter (verb) no (jury out on this but possibly an adjective describing the parsnips, or an adverb of number, qualifying the buttering) parsnips (noun).

    Subject: fine words; direct object parsnips. There, I can still do it.

    So anyway, has anyone seriously suggested that the price of oil will drop much. Indeed if it does the UK is sunk, seeing as the oil underpinned Mrs Thatchers's unemployment and Mr Blair's/Brown's/Cameron's wars...the whole thing in fact.

    Of course, we have been diversifying and maybe that bloke in the House of Aristocrats wasn't aware of the fact that we do other things. If he's a lord he'll almost undoubtedly be aware of whisky, but maybe not know where it is made. Unless of course he's a cognac lard. But these people live in a cloud cuckoo land of all their own, with their ermine and coronets and "my lord this" and "my lord that", so he probably doesn't know much about what really goes on here. I wonder if he has ever been.

    Plainly if the price of oil goes down much then the whole world economy will change. But I wouldn't count on it any time soon.

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  4. Do you know, I had no idea who John Lee Hooker was, although I've heard his name so many times...

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  5. tris

    Now you know who john lee hooker is and love his music............Ah! my life isn't completely wasted

    Err! Mrs Niko been watching trooping of the colour twice bit much if you ask me

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  6. Niko:

    What a joy to know your life wasn't completely wasted.

    As for watching TTC twice, I think you should probably take Mrs Niko out for a pint or two more. It's not right someone should have to rely on that (twice) for excitement.

    :)

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