The now-rapidly dwindling oil and gas fields of the North Sea didn’t just bring great rewards to northeast Scotland. They also brought great risks. Sobering evidence lies in Hazelhead Park on the western edges of the prosperous granite city of Aberdeen.
The memorial to those killed in the Piper Alpha disaster of July 1988 sits in a manicured rose garden in the park. Chiselled into its stone are the names of 167 men, many from nearby, who perished when the offshore oil rig exploded into a fireball.
The oldest victim, David Wiser, was 65. The youngest, Mark Ashton, was 19. He was from Inverurie, 25km up the road from the park. Two men, two generations apart, bookending those lost to what remains the world’s worst ever offshore rig disaster.
Earlier this month, someone had left flowers at the base of the plinth. “To Dad, love you loads, lots of love, Garry and Jamie.” A birthday perhaps, or some other family milestone, missed after a father went to work and never came home.
The Piper Alpha disaster shocked Aberdeen and the world, spurring a global shift in safety practices. But eventually the industry moved on, the North Sea wells kept pumping and Aberdeen carried on being the Dallas of Britain, its capital of black gold.
The memorial to the Piper Alpha disaster in Hazelhead Park, Aberdeen
That status is now under threat, however, as the oilfields dry up and the local economy in Aberdeenshire teeters on the edge.
North Sea oil and gas has become a political football in Westminster, where the UK government refuses to issue more licences on climate grounds, much to the chagrin of the Tories and Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, who pledge to “drill every last drop”.
[ The Granite City wants a solid future if the oil boom endsOpens in new window ]
It is also a big issue in Scotland, where the jobs lost are a factor in next week’s devolved parliamentary elections.
The region’s oil industry is shedding 1,000 jobs a month and Aberdeen, for decades the UK’s wealthiest city after London, has seen some of Britain’s steepest falls in disposable income of recent years.
Aberdeen and surrounding areas are “on the brink of an economic catastrophe”, according to a recent report by the Jobs Foundation, a pro-trade charity.
“We need to avoid the destruction of the [North Sea] industry, or we will see a repeat of what happened to our coalminers,” says Dale Vince, a green energy entrepreneur and one-time wealthy Labour Party backer who is quoted in the report.
Aberdeen’s south harbour. The UK government has placed a ban on issuing new licences for oil and gas in the North Sea. Photograph: Paul Reid/Getty 
A BP oil rig in Cromarty Firth, near Aberdeen. Photograph: Kristian Buus/In Pictures/Getty
Does Aberdeenshire, the centre of Britain’s oil industry, really risk the same fate that befell the old coal heartlands of South Wales? Or can the sector, as politicians hope, pivot from fossil fuels to reinvent itself as Britain’s renewable energy capital instead?
As always, failure risks a human cost.
Seamus Logan is the Antrim-born Scottish National Party (SNP) MP for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East, just north of the city. The regional towns have many businesses that supply the oil industry and workers whose jobs are at risk.
On a Saturday morning earlier this month, Logan was in Peterhead promoting a local mental health charity, Men United.
Seamus Logan MP and Gillian Martin MSP campaigning in Longside, Aberdeenshire East. Photograph: Mark Paul
Its founder, local man Sandy Garvock, endured a mental health crisis of his own a few years back. Now, through Men United, he helps others by giving them a social outlet: Garvock estimates the charity has helped prevent more than 40 would-be suicides in six years.
He is concerned that if the North Sea oil industry declines, the need for Men United’s services will increase as distress rises among sacked workers.
“The problems with the oil and gas industry are having an impact. Lots of people in Peterhead would commute into Aberdeen to work in that sector. But when things aren’t going well, people are worried,” Garvock says.
Later in the day, Logan heads inland to Longside, once a Tory-leaning town, in this politically distinct corner of Scotland. He knocks on doors to campaign for the local member of the Scottish parliament (MSP) seeking re-election, Gillian Martin.
Our new policy under John Swinney in a nutshell is there is a case for new oilfields where energy security is compromised. There are new fields that can be opened up
— Gillian Martin, Scottish National Party
Martin was also the cabinet secretary for energy and climate change in the outgoing devolved SNP administration. The party, under political pressure, has recently changed its policy towards fresh North Sea drilling. It is now less opposed to it than it once was, having previously backed a presumption against all new licences.
The SNP is also staunchly against the industry windfall tax that is levied from Westminster. The party blames it for killing most of the jobs. The SNP can also more easily pin that one on Labour, whose UK chancellor, Rachel Reeves, extended the tax.
Logan was a CIÉ tour bus driver until Covid, but appears to have emerged as a natural door-knocker in his few years so far in politics – he was elected an MP in 2024.
A hydrogen-powered bus in Aberdeen’s centre. The city is trying to make the leap from an oil town to a renewables hub amid growing demand for cheap home-produced energy. Photograph: Emily Macinnes/Getty
His easy manner is challenged, however, at the first house he hits up in a tidy housing estate in Longside. The man who answers, who gives his name only as David, isn’t hostile, but he is firmly not for turning. He says he won’t vote for the SNP.
David also says he works in the oil and gas sector. Logan reminds him that the SNP has recently changed its tune to now backing fresh drilling on energy security grounds at new oilfields such as Rosebank and Jackdaw.
“Too little, too late,” the man says stoutly. He declines to reveal who he is voting for. As we walk away, Logan says that usually means someone is voting for Reform UK. It could beat Labour to second place behind the SNP in the May 7th election.
[ Despite falling reserves, oil takes centre stage in Scottish independence debateOpens in new window ]
Martin, the Scottish energy secretary, suggests she is frustrated that some voters don’t seem to recognise that the party has softened its policy towards new fields from the near-ban it supported in Nicola Sturgeon’s day. She also laments that energy is not a devolved power – the ability to grant new licences lies in the UK government.
“With some voters, we’re stuck in a hangover from the policy of the Sturgeon years. North Sea oil and gas is raised on the doorsteps all the time. Reform have spied that opportunity with their ‘drill every drop’ policy,” she says.
“Our new policy under John Swinney in a nutshell is: there is a case for new oilfields where energy security is compromised. There are new fields that can be opened up.”
Gillian Martin and her door-knocking team on the campaign trail. Photograph: Mark Paul
Martin is defending a 1,900-seat majority in the Holyrood constituency of Aberdeenshire East that she has held for a decade. The looming shadow of Reform means nothing can be taken for granted for the SNP here, however.
She warns that the UK Labour government must not “close off an industry prematurely, especially by taxing it to the moon – for my constituents, that’s what’s killing their jobs”.
Back in Aberdeen, which is in a different Holyrood constituency, all the signs of looming economic trouble are there. House prices in the so-called Granite City are now almost a third off their peak of a decade ago.
More than 70,000, or one-third, of the industry’s jobs were lost in the seven years to 2023 alone. Not all workers lived in Aberdeen, but most at least passed through the city and spent money there. The Jobs Foundation warns of further heavy job losses.
Meanwhile, the Just Transition Commission, an advisory body to the Scottish government, warns of the risk of a “disorderly decline”.
The North Sea oil decline has contributed to a crisis in the Aberdeen hospitality industry, where dozens of venues have shut their doors recently. Among them were nightclubs such as Revolucion de Cuba, which was popular with returning rig workers, and the city’s well-known Blue Lamp pub, which closed in December.
Houses overlooking Aberdeen’s centre. Photograph: Emily Macinnes/Getty
BrewDog has shut there. So has Vue Cinemas, while in the retail industry, brands such as Decathlon and New Look have also shuttered Aberdeen outlets.
One hospitality outlet popular with rig workers seems to be still thriving, however. The Spider’s Web beside Dyce station, northwest of the city centre, is an institution in the oil industry, a favourite location for a “debrief” after weeks on a rig.
Local authorities recently voted through a tweak in its opening hours so the owner, Mark Milne, can open earlier, from 9am, to accommodate rig workers on their way home via Dyce station. On the day The Irish Times visits recently, the pub is heaving all afternoon.
David Scott, a licensing consultant, told local STV reporters that opening the pub earlier would make things easier for the workers.
“This is a unique situation serving a very specific set of circumstances. The location means it’s the last opportunity many workers get to debrief. People open up after a pint. Concerns can be raised. Conversations take place that wouldn’t be possible in the offshore environment. Problems are solved.”
If only the wider issues facing North Sea oil and gas could be fixed over a lager.