The Scottish Government has lowered its estimates of how much money can be earned from North Sea oil and gas.

Revenues from the sector could be as low as £2.4bn or as high as £10.8bn between 2016/17 and 2019/20, according to the government’s latest Oil and Gas Bulletin.

The best-case figure of £10.8bn is lower than the worst-case scenario of £15.8bn put forward for between 2014/15 and 2018/19 in the last bulletin.

The current high-end estimate of £10.8bn depends on oil returning to $100 a barrel, despite leading industry figures claiming the number is likely to hover around the current $63 mark for several years.

The Scottish Government said there "is no consensus" on price.

The report said: “As an illustrative example, in its March 2015 Economic and Fiscal Outlook the OBR Office for Budget Responsibility considers a scenario where the oil price could return to $100 per barrel in 2015/16

“In this case, when combined with the production and operating cost improvements, tax receipts from the Scottish portion of the North Sea between 2016/17 and 2019/20 could be £10.8bn."

But Deirdre Michie, the new chief executive of the industry body Oil and Gas UK, said the North Sea must become sustainable in a world where long-term oil prices are closer to $60 a barrel.

Oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood, who carried out a review of the industry for the UK Government, forecast that the price could stay at about the $65 a barrel mark for “two to three years".

Oil prices reached a peak of more than $130 a barrel in July 2008, and were over $100 a barrel for most of the period from 2011 until the summer of 2014, when they started to fall back.

Prices dipped below $50 a barrel in January this year before slowly recovering to a mid-60s value.

The publication of the bulletin on the day before Holyrood starts its summer recess sparked angry comments from Scottish Labour.

James Kelly raised the issue at the end of First Minister's Questions on Thursday, saying: "This bulletin has been asked for for months across the chamber and has now been released in the last day of the session.

"It's got profound implications for the Scottish economy with North Sea oil tax receipts at £40bn less than the White Paper [on independence]."

But a spokesman for First Minister Nicola Sturgeon branded his comments "utterly pathetic", insisting the bulletin was "published today because it was ready to be published today, it's as simple as that".

The spokesman said: "It was published a full two hours before First Minister's Questions, a document that runs to no more than 20 pages, plenty of detail in it but no more than 20 pages to digest.

"If Labour and the rest of the opposition can't fully digest a 20-page document in two hours on an issue that is already well rehearsed, then I would question their competence or how seriously they take the issue."

Source: news.stv.tv

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