A North Sea oil summit called by Aberdeen City Council will be held within the “next few weeks”.
Council leader Jenny Laing, who announced the move in December last year, said politicians would meet with representatives from the industry to discuss North Sea investment.
The price of Brent fell below $50 yesterday for the first time since 2009.
Councillor Laing said: “We all recognise there’s been issues around the falling oil price and having been out and about talking to industry it was quite clear that they are looking upon us to take some kind of action in relation to that.
“I felt the best way of doing that was to call an oil summit at which we could get government representatives at all levels around the table with industry and the trade unions to see if we could come up with an action plan.
“We called for it just before Christmas and I’m aware we had the festive break and people have been off but we have been in contact with both the UK and Scottish Governments. They’ve indicated that they are keen to attend. I think it’s too important to be waiting until we can coordinate diaries but we plan to set a date and hopefully people can send representatives to come round the table.
“Having talked to industry it is clear they want to do it sooner rather than later and the trade union movement feels the same so I would hope we can arrange that within the next few weeks.
“We need to be sending people here who are decision makers who will be able to commit to a programme at that summit and I hope they will do that.
“Since becoming leader of Aberdeen City Council I’ve been out talking to people in industry and it was quite clear that they felt action needed to be taken in order for us to secure the long-term future of the industry in the North east.”
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