This year I retired after a half century working in the UK oil and gas industry. My experience was of a fine industry which achieved stunning feats of engineering excellence and delivered economic prosperity for the UK.
The former head of Oil & Gas UK has accused politicians of “gross negligence” towards the offshore industries and their workers.
Serica Energy today revealed that it would hire two North Sea industry chiefs upon completion of a major acquisition.
Whilst I do not underestimate the pain and damage that has been inflicted by the oil price crash it is apparent to me that the industry and Aberdeen have shown great resilience in the face of huge adversity. Lesser industries and lesser cities could have panicked and folded. However, the human cost in terms of jobs lost and lives disrupted all across the industry is terrible. I hear that a total of 120,000 UK oil and gas jobs are now expected to be lost and that the number is still growing. I just do not understand why this is not headline news across the UK. In human terms, it is worse than what is sadly threated in the steel industry. In economic terms, it is quite possibly much worse.
The "hapless" Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) should be put out of its misery, according to an industry veteran.
In 2013, it was apparent that the UK offshore industry faced three significant challenges, each posing a very serious threat if not overcome. We had an uncompetitive tax regime, weak and ineffective regulator within the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and a cost base which was, frankly, out of control. We at Oil & Gas UK therefore adopted as our top priority the tackling of these three very serious threats. Following much work within our organisation and across the industry and government, I think we can regard the overall situation as now improving quite considerably. However, we are by no means out of the woods and there is one challenge on which we have not made enough progress.
Oil and Gas UK's outgoing chief executive, Malcolm Webb, highlighted an "urgent need for regulatory and fiscal reform and improvements in cost efficiency" at a meeting with Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls today. Mr Webb, who hands over the helm of the industry body to Deirdre Michie on May 1, said: "The UK oil and gas industry is suffering from high costs, years of under-resourced regulation and a tax burden of between 60% and 80%, with the impact on competitiveness exacerbated by the collapse in oil prices.
The chief executive of Oil & Gas UK said "urgent action" was needed following BP's announcement 300 jobs would be cut from its North Sea operations. Malcolm Webb said the rapidly falling oil price had led to companies making difficult decisions in a challenging environment. BP said it would be making 200 redundancies to its office-based staff in Aberdeen while a further 100 contractor jobs will be cut.
Optimism in the North Sea is continuing to decline, according to industry body Oil and Gas UK.