| Comment | Extremely important to note that North Sea gas resources, once sold off to energy companies, do not belong to Scotland or the UK - only the tax revenue and leasing payments. Only renationalisation would change this.
Any company which extracts oil or gas in our waters has paid for the right to do so and can sell it to whoever they want - including sending it to continental Europe, if they're offering better money than the UK suppliers are. This is happening right now, if we want 'our' gas then we have to out-bid the Netherlands/Belgium for it.
So opening Cambo would make approximately fuck all difference to UK gas prices, because it's only making a dent in the European-wide market, not the UK one. The UK Treasury would get a good wodge from the leasing and taxation on that, but that's in no way hypothecated towards reducing energy bills.
And fracking in the UK is such small-scale, localised and costly projects that it was never going to have the same impact on UK gas prices that it had in the US - that's a lie by lobbyists. |
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