We were keen to explore the future potential for the North sea for two reasons, one of which is the potential for the oil price to rise in future. While we have a rigged infrastructure worth a substantial amount of money still standing there, now is the time that we ought to explore the use to which we could put that infrastructure in the short term while trying to predict longer-term trends.
The fourth recommendation in the Wood review was that the Government need to work with industry to develop strategies in different areas, including for carbon capture and storage. Lord Deben, one of the Government’s own chief advisers on energy policy, argued:
“it would be very odd to produce legislation that did not allow specifically for the transportation and storage of greenhouse gases.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 September 2015; Vol. 764, c. 1227.]
Lord Oxburgh, the former head of Shell, said:
“We need some kind of strategic framework within which private industry can operate in the CCS area.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 October 2015; Vol. 765, c. 483.]
They are absolutely right. Some of the infrastructure in the North sea could be used to create an entirely new maritime industry with very many new jobs. This would also help us to realise the commitments on climate change that the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State recently agreed, rightly, at the Paris summit.