tl;dr: North Sea oil (along with all the infrastructure like refineries etc) are pretty much all owned by foreign companies who sell the oil to the highest bidder internationally, not to the UK.
If that’s the problem, can’t we just nationalise them?
I hope he was better at science than he is at economics. Those companies extract oil and gas that is the property of the UK. They have a *license* to do it – that doesn’t mean they own it.
North sea oil a living example of why myopic, tory driven Thatcherism does not work.
Norway was in the same position at the same time and has built a wealth fund for it’s country out the proceeds. Tory policy was just to sell it at a discount to private companies.
The difference in success of the two strategies is like night and day.
3 comments
tl;dr: North Sea oil (along with all the infrastructure like refineries etc) are pretty much all owned by foreign companies who sell the oil to the highest bidder internationally, not to the UK.
If that’s the problem, can’t we just nationalise them?
I hope he was better at science than he is at economics. Those companies extract oil and gas that is the property of the UK. They have a *license* to do it – that doesn’t mean they own it.
North sea oil a living example of why myopic, tory driven Thatcherism does not work.
Norway was in the same position at the same time and has built a wealth fund for it’s country out the proceeds. Tory policy was just to sell it at a discount to private companies.
The difference in success of the two strategies is like night and day.