Two new fields with at least 10 million barrels forecast were reported here on March 24th and 3rd April 2018. See these for more:
Another major oil-find in Scottish sector of North Sea
Multi-million-barrel oil discovery in North Sea
In calculating their worth, I used the conservative/non-controversial figure of $60 per barrel. However, crude is currently selling consistently at $65 per barrel and will be selling for more by this summer. See this from Oil & Gas People today:
‘Brent for June settlement rose 41 cents to $69.76 on the London-based. The May contract climbed 74 cents to close at $70.27 before expiration on Thursday.’
So, we’re talking about total income, even if prices do not rise higher as many predict, of $1.4 billion from only these two recent discoveries minus production costs of $12 per barrel resulting in taxable revenue of $1.12 billion. Converting to Sterling, we get $797 million and if we tax at the current corporation tax level of 20%, the Treasury gets £159 million.
Add this to the £75 billion we should be taxing the producers for the 11.7 billion barrels, by 2050, already predicted by Office for Budget Responsibility.
Correction: Office for Budget Responsibility massively underestimates North Sea oil revenues
Talking-up Scotland 
Ah, but as soon as Indyref 2 is called, these fields will be ‘unviable’. Indeed, they might well be found to be the source of the manufacture of Novichok nerve agent. So, in the event of Russia not being shown to be behind the Salisbury attacks, it will now be ‘proven beyond a reasonable doubt that it was Scottish SEPARATISTS’. Boris Johnson will be demanding that all civilised nations shun Scotland.
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It would’ve been fried Novichok had we been to blame? And, Novichok sounds like a new form of chocolate. Have MI5 or 6 followed that up?
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Don’t know “..categorically..” whether Novickok is a new form of chocolate (‘..of a type developed in Russia..’) but it has certainly left plenty of easter egg all over Boris and Treeza’s multiple faces.
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Headline from beeb news website:’Bahrain discovers offshore oilfield ‘containing 80bn barrels” – Curiously the article doesn’t describe this massive oilfield discovery as an unmitigated economic disaster for Bahrain. Interestingly it carries no comments from Bahrain’s version of Col. Ruth ‘Harrison’ begging some merciful divinity to free Bahrain from the this newly discovered oilfield which will continue to curse the Bahraini economy for centuries, nay, – millennia – to come. Strange that.
Another headline from beeb news page: ‘Cable: Lib Dems are well-kept secret’ – Not a secret sufficiently well-kept Vince, sorry – but you must try a bit harder still.
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DEEP fried, surely?
Alasdair’s comment connecting oilfields to nerve agents, entertaining at first (okay, still is 🙂 ) actually does sound like all the news we are currently getting these days (even with my limited exposure) – no sense or reason, regurgitating sound bites without even trying to get their story straight – can anyone still think there is such a thing as ‘freedom of the press’? Repeating any negative narrative until it has been wrung out and limp, ignoring that there might be some actual news to report.
I just found this little video clip on the Twitter thing:
https://mobile.twitter.com/bullshit_hero/status/980325759272153089/video/1
I don’t know who put it together, and it doesn’t look Fake (who knows though eh). It’s American news reporting, the epitome of freedom of reporting, epitome of competition and capitalist ideology, that which Westminster aims for and so desperately wants us to emulate because,,,, it works so well?? For everyone to use the exact same phrases, in the exact same tone for the exact same,,,, robots, automatons Spring to mind.
Please, please, can we get away from this toxic union with England? Westminster is toxic, their political playing is toxic, ,,, T May I just feel pity for, she is a robot that is a product of the system, their system, who doesn’t even have the ability to spin a convincing lie – zero charisma there. I do not want to be associated with it.
I’m not being very positive! Perhaps it has been the particularly negative raving on my good morning radio show this week? Tuesday morning was a particularly seriously negative spin on potentially good news stories: like the commonwealth games, they interviewed the Scottish minister for health & sport over on the Gold Coast, talking about the Glasgow commonwealth games & its legacy. The minister said the facilities built have been used since to good effect for international events, and people in Scotland have increased their activity levels – mostly by walking, which is being promoted (super! We are all fab! Everything has worked out well) – the interviewer (probably Hayley) said ‘but you have FAILED’ to get people into sport – she repeated the FAILED as well, to make sure we heard it – that all those buildings were a waste of time was the implication, even though we’d all just been told otherwise. Objectively, the use of the word ‘failed’ was not true, in the context, not necessary, and extremely rude.
So, I guess to make the BBC happy, we’d all have to become elite sportspeople? Happy? Unlikely! I am planning to climb lots of stairs today, but even then I’ll have Failed, I expect, unless I put on Lycra to do it. (Shiver of horror)
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Contrary,
Thank you for the comment. Personally I think the bon mot is not greatly bon.
You have identified what I was trying to get at regarding the news content. For several weeks we have had the Salisbury story with the news media parroting a ‘story, which, increasingly, seems to have significant fictitious parts. We have had the Corbyn/antisemitism story replayed day after day, based on a mural in north London as far back as 2012. Ken Livingston is still suspended from the Labour Party for his comments about Hitler supporting Zionists (which has some basis in fact, but, was ill-advised in the context), but the tweet by Lord Sugar juxtaposing Mr Corbyn with Hitler has simply been briefly reported than dropped. Like you I listened to the interviews – by Gillian Marles – regarding the Commonwealth Games legacy. She was pretty supercilious and arrogant throughout and focussed on the very narrow definition of ‘participation’. The velodrome, for example, is very heavily used. Much of the usage is by elite cyclists, which leaves limited time for the general public once schools’ usage is taken into account.
The definition of ‘participation’ depends pretty much on sports clubs. Many people are active and have increased their exercise since the Games, but they are essentially jogging, walking, cycling, scooting, skateboarding, going to the gym, going to the pool, going to yoga, pilates, zumba classes at the local church hall, etc. Essentially, the BBC and the media are basing their reports on the principle that if it is not easily measurable then it is not important.
The classic example of misuse of data is the focus in education on the very narrow PISA data which are quite restricted range tests on mathematics and literacy.
You have summed this up well in your final paragraph. If there is a big event at the velodrome, involving, say, Katie Archibald, I will attend eagerly, but for most of the time, I prefer to be on my bike cycling along the Clyde Walkway close to the velodrome – and I refuse to wear LYCRA!!!!
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Glad that someone was paying closer attention to what was being said, and has far more eloquence than me to relate what was said!! The population of Scotland is obviously making a ton of effort to increase activity & working it into their daily lives – but we are still told we are fat and lazy and must start drinking artificial sweeteners by the BBC (luckily I don’t like fizzy drinks anyway). The constant criticism is just to try and get us put back in our box, eh?
That was another good news story wasn’t it? Something about education, a big long report about a good new way to get young pupils to engage I think – then, we are told, this is good because Scottish education is so unbelievably terrible (PIZZA scores) we need to do something. Sigh. Luckily only a tiny percentage of people listen to it.
I went to watch the snooker in the velodrome, or one of those new places, and no Lycra required 😀
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