My thoughts in Energy Voice on how the North Sea can support post-COVID economic recovery via the energy transition:
https://www.energyvoice.com/opinion/239350/stop-hoping-for-a-boom/
Extract:
Back in the mid-1980s, well before my time in industry, there was (allegedly) a popular bumper sticker in oil towns. I shouldn’t repeat the ‘official’ version here, but once cleaned-up, it might read, ‘Please God, let there be another oil boom. I promise not to mess this one up’. Because there’s nothing worse than wasting the good times, right? Maybe, but not responding to a downturn surely ranks a close second.
The suddenness and extent of the current crisis were unquestionably hard to predict. Not only has COVID-19 ground the global economy to a halt but the on-going dispute between Russia and Saudi Arabia has seen crude plummet below $30/bbl. And there’s no way predicting when all this might end or what state things will be in when it does. But whilst today’s circumstances are undeniably unique and bizarre, the notion of a sustained low oil price environment most certainly isn’t. So, what did the UKCS learn from last time?
