Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, I was educated at the local school - 
Banffshire & Buchan Coast MSP Stewart Stevenson has today welcomed the publication of a report from Aberdeen University confirming the “substantial remaining potential” from Scotland’s offshore resources.
The report Prospects for Activity in the UK Continental Shelf after Recent Tax Changes: the 2012 Perspective – authored by Professor Alex Kemp and Linda Stephen – makes a number of recommendations to maximise the long-term benefit of Scotland’s oil resources, and highlights the substantial investment currently underway.
Scottish Government estimates are that remaining North Sea reserves represent an estimated £1.5 trillion of wholesale value - far higher than the value extracted to date.
Commenting on the new report, Mr Stevenson said:
“This welcome report is the latest in a series of analyses which underline the strength of Scotland’s offshore oil and gas industry for many decades to come.
“Just last week, oil firm TAQA announced the purchase of $1billion worth of assets from BP – underlining their confidence in the North Sea’s future – which itself came on the back of a Scottish Enterprise report anticipating that 86 new North Sea oil and gas fields will begin development by 2016, with investment of £44 billion.
“The £1.5 trillion value of North Sea resources still remaining is much higher than the value already extracted.
“Instead of being squandered as they have been by successive Westminster Governments - Tory and Labour - we need the powers of an independent Scotland to ensure that oil and gas resources work for the benefit of the people of Scotland.
"Westminster governments and anti-independence parties have been saying that the oil and gas is running out since the early years of production in the 1970s - and the reality now is that more than half of the revenues are still to come."
