ENERGY investment bank boss Matt Simmons said yesterday he believed the North Sea had a great future as a “capital of offshore wind”.
The chairman of Simmons and Company International said, however, that, with new oil and gas finds becoming smaller, production in the area would continue to decline.
Mr Simmons told the Press and Journal before he spoke at last night’s Energy Institute dinner in Aberdeen that oil was cheap at $80 a barrel and cheap even at $140, and would have to rise – to $200 a barrel or above.
He said: “We’ve been living on borrowed time, but we’re coming to the end of unbelievably cheap oil. You have to pay the piper.
“How quickly oil prices will rise may depend on catastrophic events like terrorist attacks, which could create a price eruption.
“Demand is going to rise and, if supply falls, that will trigger higher prices.”
Mr Simmons, whose Houston-based company has an office in Aberdeen, also said it was easy to finance good North Sea projects, but what was hard was finding a good project.