Viceroy Jack is at it again ...

The UK continues its great rip-off of Scotland's resources

I wrote this in response to Alister Jack’s column in The Scotsman on January 22nd, 2024, “UK Government’s Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill is vital to keep the lights on.”
It was published in The Scotsman on January 24th. The editors cut out the last ten lines, starting with “Independent Norway.” Of course they don’t want to mention the UK’s theft of our renewables, now well underway.

Alister Jack asserts that issuing more licenses to develop Scottish oil fields will enhance UK energy security. He’s wrong. 

First, the extracted oil will be sold on the international market of which 80% will be exported. Second, since 2004, despite the UK awarding 1,680 North Sea oil and gas licences to foreign firms, oil exports jumped from 60 to 80% and domestic production fell by 60%.  

Third, UK refinery capacity, the ability to process domestically produced oil, has cratered.  Scotland’s last oil refinery, Grangemouth, is being shuttered by PetroIneos, a private partnership between Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos and Chinese state oil company Petrochina. 500 jobs will disappear and the rump of Grangemouth will lie within the Forth Freeport, a tax- and regulation-free zone that will further strip assets and revenues from Scotland. 

The UK’s biggest oil producing nation will not only be without a refinery but also without control over oil extraction or access to the profits and will be more dependent on England, which is the idea. Independent Norway, similar to Scotland in population and oil resources, has two refineries. Oh, and Norway taxes Big Oil operators 78% to drill in their waters, while in 2016 the UK permanently cut the oil revenue tax to 0%.

Fourth, Sunak’s net zero policy rollback will slow the transition to renewables. But why develop a plan when the UK can just steal from Scotland? 35 TWh of renewables worth £600 billion a year are being cabled to England with no compensation for the Scottish People. By 2030, the UK plans to increase this to 124 TWh, worth an estimated £2.12 trillion.

The Tories and Labour will never voluntarily release Scotland from its grip because our resources are the only thing propping up the rotting edifice of the failing UK.