Wait a minute, Darling Indicated Oil was Running Out... According to this it's GROWING

THE TERRIBLE BURDEN OF OIL

JOAN McAlpine looks deeper into the some Westminster's claims regarding how Britain's oil would be distributed if Scotland became an independent nation.

Does the oil belong to Scotland?

Yes. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) says oil revenue should go to the country in whose waters it was discovered. Professor Alex Kemp, of the University of Aberdeen, says 90 per cent of UK oil lies in Scottish waters but we need to be independent to get the revenue it generates.

Isn't the oil running out?

No. UK Oil and Gas, who represent companies working in the industry, say there are 24 billion barrels left in the North Sea. That is why they are investing record amounts. Even the UK Government have conceded it could last another 50 years.

How much is it worth?

Around £1.5trillion. This could rise as world demand pushes up prices. The International Monetary Fund’s research team have predicted world prices could double by 2022.

Will we be too dependent on oil if we choose independence?

Even without oil, Scotland’s wealth is around the same as the rest of the UK, according to official figures. Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s say, even without oil, Scotland would be one of the most successful economies in the developed world. But the oil is a huge bonus and gives an independent Scotland a great head start.

What does that mean for me and my family?

We can create an oil fund by saving some of the tax – Norway, a country the same size as Scotland, has accumulated an oil fund of £500 billion to be used for pensions, healthcare and investment in the future. The UK has failed to set up a fund and squandered our oil wealth.

But the UK Government say the Scottish Government have exaggerated the value of oil

They would say that, wouldn't they? The highly respected Investors Chronicle magazine said the UK Government are underplaying the value of the North Sea oil because of the forthcoming referendum on independence.

Who else backs the Scottish Government?

Professor Sir Donald MacKay, the world’s foremost expert on oil prices, says the UK government are wrong and the Scottish Government are right. He said: “There is no hole in the Scottish Government’s oil predictions but there is a mountain of black gold missing from the UK Government’s.” The economic think tank N-56 said the figure for future tax revenues was six times more than the UK government claimed.

Is more oil being discovered?

All the time. This month Xcite Energy announced a major new oil find east of Shetland. The Bentley field will produce 700 million barrels over 35 years. The Clair Ridge Project to the west of Shetland is expected to produce 640 million barrels in the future. BP’s publicity video says Clair will make an enormous contribution to the UK economy for many years to come.

Why don’t I know this?

Good question. David Cameron made a secret visit to Shetland to see this important field. But the visit was hushed up along with the latest results of test drilling, which are rumoured to reveal even more oil.

Why would they bury a good news story?

A certain independence vote on September 18. It has even been suggested that workers on the field stand down till after the referendum.

Surely the UK Government are not involved in a cover up?

(At this point we had to pause while we arranged oxygen for Munguin.) They have form. When oil was found in the 1970s, a report for ministers by the senior civil servant Gavin McCrone predicted an independent Scotland would be richer than Switzerland. That was kept secret for 30 years.

So they lied to us?

(Well duh! They are the British government. It's what they do.) Denis Healey, the former Labour chancellor in the 1970s, admitted the value of oil was played down by Labour and Conservative governments to stop the Scots supporting independence.

How much did these lies cost us?

Around £300 billion of oil tax revenue has gone straight to the London Exchequer since oil was discovered. Scotland didn’t receive a penny.

Anything else I should know?

Significant oil finds were made in the Clyde in the 1970s but the industry was blocked by the UK Ministry of Defence because they didn't want anything interfering with nuclear submarines. Michael Heseltine, defence secretary at the time, admitted it this week.

Last weekend the Scottish Government created a taskforce to examine the potential of oil in the west. A Yes vote will mean the Ministry of Defence will no longer be able to block these developments.

What will independence change?

All the tax money from oil will stay in Scotland and be used for the good of the people who live here.

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World’s Largest Oil Field NOT Found - The Mystery Surrounding the Prime Minister's Shetland Visit

I thought you might enjoy this little chippy article that I found on the net from the good people at OilandGasPeople.com and the YES Highlands and Islands folk. The illustrations are Munguin's, because obviously the whole thing is a huge secret and MI17.2 has destroyed all evidence of him ever being anywhere that day.

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Speculation is growing in the Oil Industry that there was more to the UK Prime Ministers recent secret visit to Shetland than has been released. The Facebook page of YES Highlands and Islands has released the following article that has gone viral on-line.

PLEASE DO NOT SHARE - EMBARGO UNTIL 19/09/14

WORLD'S LARGEST OIL FIELD NOT FOUND


You may remember the Prime Minister came to visit Shetland under the tightest secrecy ever seen in Shetland last week and the national press knew nothing about it. Nor the local press.

Buster was there as he landed at the airport at 1623 of course to take photos.

Mr Cameron came to Shetland to say absolutely nothing about anything and allowed the local media 6 minutes of questions.

Which he did not answer.

Now you are all wondering why the PM made a very rushed, and hugely expensive trip to the Shetland Oils, missing his cabinet meeting, and just making it back to Glasgow for the Games.

You're not?

Well you should be.

Because his haste was nothing to do with wanting to see us. He did make one tiny announcement about energy in which Scots could save £46 per annum but he could have put out a press release from No 10 about that.

Energy. Mmmmmmm? Black gold?

As luck would have it, Buster was flying his drone around the West of Shetland oilfields recently when he noticed something strange.

A drilling rig, definitely not on contract to BP, and not near the Clair Field did not suddenly de-man and send all the workers home and they are not on full pay.

Nor did he overhear the rig manager say "Come back in September and don't speak to any wee ginger cats or your sacked."

The rig did not discover "sweet oil", the most highly-prized stuff for turning into petroleum spirit, nor was it in shallower water than the normal 150m some of the other Clair oil is lurking at.

Nor did it find it in quantities so large that "biggest" and "world" could be used in the same sentence.

Mr Cameron did not request the oil companies keep this massive wealth hidden from the Scottish electorate until after the referendum.

He would never do that.

Just like Westminster didn't before the last referendum. 

We're sorry we have absolutely no news for you about the vast oil and gas reserves not found in the Atlantic but when we do hear anything you'll be the first to know.

Editorial Note: There is no truth in the matter that following last year's heavy investment investment, oil production is set to soar over the next few years.

HURRAH, EVERYONE IS A MILLIONAIRE

It may have been mentioned here before, but at the risk of becoming a bit of a bore on the subject, I thought I might just mention again that Scotland and Norway, with approximately the same population, and relatively similar geographic position in northern Europe, were both blessed with oil at the same time.

Norway gratefully took the gift of vast sums of money, upgraded its infrastructure and set about putting away money into two funds to look after the future. A future when the oil might run out, or the world would move on from oil and find other ways to fuel its economies.

Scotland, on the other hand, generously gave all her money to her next door neighbour, because Scots were too wee, stupid and poor to make any sensible decisions, and they spent it on making Scottish people unemployed, building a lavish motorway system and a variety of other grandiose projects (new underground lines, Crossrail, and so on, all in and around their capital), building up the City of London to be the biggest and, some say, most corrupt financial centre in the world, and of course buying nuclear weapons from their friends in America.

And because they wanted to give Scotland something back for all that lovely oil money ...and because the nuclear weapons were pretty damned dangerous and very unpopular and no one wanted them in their back yard... they put them just a few miles away from Scotland's largest centre of population, creating a few hundred jobs to make up for the million or so they had got rid of by closing factories, mills, mines and shipyards. 

They were also able to buy a lot of favour from their friends by getting a job as America's patsy and going to war against anyone their transAtlantic friends didn't like.

And so it went on, everyone was happy... until just the other day Norway (with all it's pensions and social security funded and it's international investments being worth more than 1% of the total investment in the whole wide world) hit a land mark.

Every single one of Norway's population of just over 5 million men, women and children, became a millionaire in their own currency of the Kroner. The fund is THAT big.

This excited Scots who decided to inquire how much their oil fund (for they didn't expect two) was worth.

Imagine their surprise when they looked to see how close they were to becoming kroner millionaires... and found to their disappointment that, far from being equal or nearly equal with their Norwegian cousins, they were, in fact, each one of them in debt to the tune of 163,296.81 NKr for each man woman and child in the country.

Still, not a bunch to let ourselves be discouraged, we can at least say in all honesty that Norwegians don't have the honour of having weapons of mass destruction, with the power to take out whole suburbs of Moscow (as long as they get permission from the USA) only a few miles away from Oslo.

So... nah nah nah nah nah, Norway!

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Had to add this...

SUNDAY SNAPS

Gotta love Die Deaprtment für Arbeit und Renten und Führer Duncan Smith

I wonder who we blame...

Live with it. That's Britain today.

Weasel words you say? I think that's a tad unkind to weasels, don't you?

Nah, he can't have said that. After all he's done it.

The Scotsman... yes, The Scotsman. A little lie down I think.

No point in protesting little mouse. The Tories is the Tories. They would squeeze money out of a dead peasant

Not just something of the night about this creep. Something of the highwayman too!

Er No. Silly question.

It's so frustrating to have to live like this when we could live like them, if we didn't have to buy auntie Nellie all these fur coats.

The Herald. Yes, The Herald. 

O Lordy. You have to feel sorry for them, don't you. The Fear Monger must have been on holiday and left the apprentice fear monger  in charge. We've already done that one, Michael ,you twerp. Try something that hasn't been debunked.
Click on images to enlarge.

Financial reports show that 144 staff members at the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) received more than £2.8 million ($4.3 million/€3.3 million) in redundancy payments for 2012-2013 after being contracted permanently, despite the organisation being due to shut down in 2014. Nice work if you can get it.
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In Scotland on Sunday today, Andrew Wilson says that the economics of Scotland’s choice are quite easy to understand. He points out that without oil we perform to the average of the UK and the best of any UK region outside the South-East.  

His plea is that we hear much less about oil and its future, and a lot more about how badly it has been managed by Westminster. 

Scotland is the only oil producing region anywhere in the world which has not even 1 cent of wealth fund to show for it. Norway has $700 billion. 

Thatcher used the vast amounts that our oil generated to fund unemployment as she deindustrialised the UK economy, gave    massive tax cuts to the rich and reduced the income tax burden on others and wasted even more of it on nuclear weapons.

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According to the Daily Mail (usual warnings apply) the deputy prime minister of the Uk is not happy about paying his bar bill at his stately home, official country residence. Chevening is shared between Clegg and the Foreign Secretary. (We assume that they are not having to bunk up together as the place has over 150 rooms.) The rules are that when he is entertaining there as deputy prime minister, we pay for his food and drink and that of his invitees, however, when he uses the home for family and friends HE is supposed to pick up the tab. He apparently objects to this...

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Cameron is off on holiday again. He's gone to Portugal this time. That's nice for him. He's apparently having 4 holidays this year. Nice. Well, at least I suppose that it could be said that while he's away in Portugal or wherever else, he's not causing havoc in London.

SATURDAY SNAPS

Before we get on to the snaps, I'd like to draw your attention to a new publication by our own (our very own) Pa Broon. To raise more money for his Scout troop, Pa has written an account of  a short break on Arran, called quite appropriately, "On Arran". (Sample here).

If you enjoyed the "Great Glen Way", you'll like this too. I could read this guy's stuff all night. He never fails to make me laugh with his crisp dry humour and self deprecating style. It's only £2.03, and for a brilliant cause.

Dear Lynton...such an asset

...to cigarette companies

Nah...you must have it wrong. Alistair says its nearly finished... and he knows all about being nearly finished

Except you'd have Ed's irritating voice instead of Eton Boy's

Oh well...locust are nice deep fried...they say

Make up your mind Alistair. Hmmm "mind"

As we have always said

And that's not all you got away with, is it?

Generous George, everything' a bargain... not!

Ain't it true?

That explains a lot of the dodgy arithmetic

Westminster's priorities are...Westminster

You can't help wishing they would, as the Fench say "accorder leurs violins"

BE THERE...

...OR BE SQUARE!

COME ALONG AND FILL THE HILL.

Wasted on wars and unemployment while Norway invested in infrastructure, jobs and education

£1.9 billion; thats 6% +/- our total budget at the moment...and that would be extra.

Denmark joins Iceland in its acceptance of Scotland

Name me an actual FACT that they have used, if you disagree

I bet Cameron was thinking..."I wish I'd brought my union flag. Why does Salmond always outthink me?"

Pretty , not. The Brit "loyalists" of whom Brits everywhere should be ashamed. The YES campaign by comparison want to press their case with logic, not hatred.

Et cette affaire est reproduit dans d'autres régions de l'UE. Nous ne sommes pas seuls. Vive une Ecosse libre.

Useful answers for doubters. This time the truth, not from Project Fear

Just like the bedroom tax, Scots have opposed the privatisation of the Post Office, but of course no one gives a toss what we think, when there is money to be made for the Friends of the Tories and their lap dogs.

You should... no MUST...read the Rev Stu's take on this nonsense. Labour's policy is its usual half thought out  hair brained, moronic  fail.

This surge in English national awareness is a good thing. Clearly the devolution settlement was unfair from the point of view of "West Lothian". The English should  remember, though, that  THEY call the tune on anything that is not devolved, and until 1999, for nearly 300 years, on everything! However, when national identity gets out of the bag, it's hard to put it back, and this is a game changer.