Oil running out myth (Charlie Gallagher)
I have just listened to Jim Sillars and George Galloway, along with all the others who bang on about the oil running out.
Let’s dispel once and for all the myth that the oil is running out. This might be true for the North Sea but it’s certainly not true for the Atlantic margin. In fact there is a field off Campbeltown that as some like to say is “shovel ready” and the only thing blocking it going into a production phase is the Ministry Of Defence, because it will interfere with them playing with their nuclear submarines.
Last Saturday’s Althing debated Scottish independence and I raised the question: “How many of those present were aware that last year the Westminster government sneaked out an invitation to oil companies to bid for 2,500+ exploration blocks between the Scottish/Faroese boundary and the Scottish/Irish boundary?”
I asked this directly to the “incredible ‘no’ men” on the panel, namely Alistair Carmichael and Ian Duncan, and quelle surprise, they ducked the question and did not answer.
Over the last 40 years preliminary surveys have shown that there are huge reserves of oil/gas to be recovered; in fact one of the largest oil/gas basins in the world lies off Lewis. Some oil men conservatively predict that in these western fields there are greater reserves of oil/gas than the whole of the North Sea, including the Norwegian sector and the gas fields of the southern North Sea put together.
If we are not careful we will be done out of our natural resources in exactly the same way as happened after the McCrone report in the 1970s. A report that Denis Healey quite recently freely admitted that both Labour and Tories had misled the people of Scotland.
So let’s cut out the crap and the sophistry that the oil is declining and make it quite clear that once again Westminster has its greedy eyes on these vast untapped resources to dig them out of another hole just as Thatcher did in the 1980s.
Charlie Gallagher
Tigh Na Mara,
Sullom.
len koil
Oil is not running out? Im a scientist specializing in geological mineral deposits which include crude deposits globally. Oil is most definitely running out. This is a quantifiable fact, its ridiculous for a politician or journalist to suggest otherwise.
John Tulloch
How long do you estimate we’ve got left before it runs out?
John Tulloch
Charlie,
This is great news but surely all this CO2-emitting, ‘Peak Oil’-inducing oil burning that you’re going to do runs counter to the stated SNP policy of making Scotland the ‘Green Capital of Europe’?
Was it not towards that aim that we’ve tolerated soaring energy prices and the swelling ranks of the fuel poor – for the sake of “our grAND-CHILDren”?
Has the SNP suddenly discovered there’s really no need to worry about ‘climate change’?
And/or
Has the penny simply dropped that nobody in their right mind would invest in industrial scale renewable energy, anyway?
Because the closest we shall get to being the ‘Saudi Arabia of renewable energy’ will be watching Aladdin at the next panto season.
The genii may or may not still be in the lamp but the ‘cat is certainly out of the bag’ with renewable energy.
Laurence Paton
I recently read a report that stated that presently the planet has ” known” reserves that are would last 50 years at present rates of consumption. Present consumption is 80 – 90 million Barrels of oil per day.
Of course there are still “unknown” reserves out there but they are generally found in much smaller pockets and increasingly hard to get to, remote and in deepwater.
In recent years the biggest discoveries have been gas rather than oil, with massive reserves of gas now proven around Australia and the East coast of Africa, more gas probably than the entire middle east.
Bill Lees
You’re a Scientist Specializing in Geological mineral deposits which includes crude oil? Well you say so but we have no proof of that any more than we have proof of Charlie Gallagher’s claims.
What we do know for sure is that there has been 330 oil licenses issued last year. This to me looks like an industry that is confident if finding new deposits, we also know as a matter of fact that BP were willing to drill off Arran but were refused a licence because of Polaris. So if I was to believe someone, it might just be Charlie.
ian Tinker
Just to be a tad pedantic, oil and coal reserves will never run out as long as there is life on earth. They are a truly renewable resource, you just have to wait a few dozens of millennia. Any true scientist would know that!! Todays plant, tomorrows peat, then to coal. Todays mollusc, ect
Ian Tinkler
and just thing my “Green” friends, they (fossil fuels) are truly organic, renewable, absolutely natural and self replacing in the true sense of the words. Sorry just taking the P.
John Tulloch
Charlie,
You said: “……..oil companies to bid for 2,500+ exploration blocks between the Scottish/Faroese boundary and the Scottish/Irish boundary?” and ……” in fact one of the largest oil/gas basins in the world lies off Lewis.”
If Shetland and the other ‘Our Islands, Our Future’ (OIOF) islands were independent then much, if not most of, the oil you are referring to would fall to those isles so it seems remarkable that our negotiators are “not playing the oil card.”
Ali Inkster is right when he says much of the oil will have run out by the time OIOF get through with their incremental – ‘salami’ – approach to autonomy, especially, if the slices are to be as thin as reports suggest at this uniquely auspicious moment in hIstory for our negotiators.
As you say, “if we are not careful we will be done out of our natural resources.”
Brian Clark
Oil has been used commercially for about 100 years ……………heard of any country that’s run out yet ??
As 10% of uk population Scotland consumes one tenth of the fuel that uk uses ie:- This means that 1 years uk consumption would last Scotland 10 years !!! ……..Therefore in the last 40 years uk has used oil that could have lasted Scotland 400 YEARS !!!
What was ” better together ” about hiding the McCrone Report for 30 years !! ……These are not the kind of cheats to do any business with !! ………Thatcher must have been laughing at us all the way to her grave !!
Ali Inkster
By the same reasoning the oil that’s left in Shetlands waters will last Shetland thousands of years. Better aff clear o da lot o dem.
David S Briggs
Anything outwith the Shetland 15 mile limit isn’t Shetlands, it’s Scotland’s.
A persistent falsehood that it’s ‘Shetland’s oil’.
Shetland will of course have it’s share of an Independent Scotland’s wealth.
ian tinkler
Well said Ali.