Scotland Bets on Oil and Gas Returns to Increase Leeway for Independence

First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond unveiled a paper called ‘Maximising the return from Oil & Gas in an independent Scotland’, highlighting the opportunities for the country.

“Scotland has been blessed with unrivalled natural resources and communities around the country should benefit from them. Oil and gas revenues would offer a premium advantage for an independent Scotland – a tremendous bonus to boost any diverse modern economy,” said Salmond in a note released on Tuesday.

The paper highlighted that there are around 24 billion barrels of recoverable oil and gas remaining in the North Sea, suggesting at the same time that ‘an independent Scotland could produce six times its domestic oil demand and three times the country’s domestic gas demand based on current production.’

‘Gross-domestic product (GDP) per person in Scotland increases from broadly the same level as the rest of the UK even without offshore oil activity to 118 per cent of the UK average when a geographic share of North Sea output is included,” adds the note.

“This paper restates the Scottish Government commitment to establish an oil fund when the fiscal conditions allow. The decision by successive UK governments to spend all the oil revenues rather than investing them, represents a lost opportunity for Scotland. Norway established its oil fund in 1990, although it did not start transferring money into the fund until 1996. The fund is now worth £450 billion, equivalent to £90,000 per person in Norway, and is the largest Sovereign Wealth Fund in the world,” commented Salmond. 

Earlier this year, Lloyds Banking Group has found that the oil and gas industry could create up to 34,000 jobs in Scotland in the next two years.