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Some historians believe Hitler lost the war because he didn’t have enough of it. Undoubtedly it contributed to a swifter end to the Second World War.
There is a sense of community on a rig. Everyone is your neighbour and most people try to get on well with each other. There is the usual friendly banter you always get when a bunch of men are together away from home. But there are rarely any problems or bullying. Everyone puts more effort into avoiding problems than they would at home. Not everyone will become your friend but as you do not cause problems and do your work you are unlikely to have any issues with others on the rig.
Rigs generate their own electricity and water arrives in two forms by boat. You have drinking water and you have “Pot” water, which has many uses from flushing toilets to washing down decks and windows.
The North Sea:
North Sea Oil was first discovered in Norwegian waters in 1966. Shortly after that the first Scottish fields were discovered. In 1970 the Forties field was discovered and five years later the first oil came ashore. Scotland now produces more oil than Kuwait.
In the mid seventies the UK was in dire financial trouble and it was oil that saved England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland from bankruptcy.
Having our own oil meant we were not dependant on OPEC who were forcing up the cost at the pumps and we could pay for the massive numbers unemployed across the UK at the time. Other problems such as the miners’ strikes caused financial pressure for the whole country that would have been far worse if not for the oil.
North Sea Tigers are any person that works in the North Sea UK sector.
They said the North Sea would be dry by 1995. In 2008 it was estimated that there was over 30 Billion barrels left, which is more than we have taken out already. We have not yet looked at every part of our waters. New technology is allowing us to drill in deeper and deeper water and in the wild Atlantic waters off the west coast of Scotland. Scottish and other UK companies are world leaders in these new technologies. Similar technology also allows us to extract more oil from previously abandoned wells. Therefore the remaining oil reserves could be as much as 60 – 100 Billion barrels.
In 2008 Shell brought 4 new fields online and invested over 100 Million pounds into their North Sea operation. They do not throw their money into something that will not give them a return.
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What is a barrel of oil?
In the early days of the industry, Oil was transported in barrels and that reference of measurement has stuck. So what is a barrel? A Barrel of crude oil is 42 USA gallons or about 159 litres. Crude oil is the black stuff that comes out of the well before refinement. It contains all the ingredients to create many different products during the refinement process. Crude oil itself is not used for anything. To make it useful we need to process it. That process is called refinement. During refinement, various commodities are extracted. For example, diesel, lubricating oils, heating oils etc
This amount of crude oil yields:-
Nearly 5 litres of LPG
Enough jet fuel for a passenger plane to travel a mile
1 tank of petrol (gasoline) for an average sized car.
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Why does the price of oil fluctuate?
Supply and demand: The more the world uses, the more demand there is and the more it costs. Then as suppliers catch up with demand, the price may go down a bit.
More Expensive Extraction: In many parts of the world including the North Sea, the Oil companies have naturally sourced the easiest fields first. New offshore fields may be in deeper water or deeper below the sea bed or both. They could be in rougher waters or be a long way from land. All these factors and more increase the cost of obtaining the oil.
Speculators Game: By far and away the main reason the oil price rises is because of market speculation. Just as in the money markets or stocks and shares, traders can greatly affect prices of the commodity being sold.
Many people in the UK if asked would probably imagine that oil prices are rising in the UK because our own supplies are running out. However, even if they were, this would not cause prices to go up compared to the three points above.
In the last 10 years, 1% per annum increases in demand for oil. However, the increase in supply has been 2 ˝ %. This means that at current demand, we have enough reserves of oil to last 44 years.
There will still be exploration rigs in Scottish waters in 40 years time.
In 2004 a Semi Submersible was charging USA dollars 50,000. 4 years later the price has gone up massively to 350,000. That is a 7 fold increase.
Oil companies are still making 10 – 15% profit in their investments which compares favourably with other industries.
See wikipedia.org for Economy of Scotland / North Sea Oil
State owned oil companies own 80% of the worlds oil reserves. The UK state oil company was sold off by the Thatcher government in the 1990s.
Billions of pounds are made in taxes from the oil fields. In 2007 230 Billion pounds went into the UK government purse. This includes oil field licences, various taxes before the oil reaches the refineries and other taxes such as fuel duty and VAT after refining. In the UK for each pound paid at the fuel tanks 65 pence is tax. North Sea oil has provided a major boost to the whole UK just when it really needed it. The economy has gone from strength to strength thanks in no small part to the continued support of North Sea oil. Without oil Margaret Thatcher may not have come to power at all, or certainly her reign would not have been so long and influential.
This is not a UK only phenomenon, all round the world, those countries that have oil have felt its power influence their political polices and change their structure, not always for the better. Countries with oil become far more powerful and influential than similar sized countries without oil.
Shetland has an oil fund so why not Scotland.
Shetland at first did not want the oil but it has brought large financial benefit for the islands and a much improved standard of living. There are still some who wish it had never arrived to their beautiful homeland but most now are glad of the additional prosperity the industry has brought. This includes many extra benefits to local hotels and shops.
Scotland is a main centre of Europe’s oil industry and the city of Aberdeen is the oil capital of Europe. Aberdeen-shire is one of the wealthiest in the UK. The oil industry is worth over 4 billion pounds a year to the city itself. Nearly half a million people are employed and work in every corner of the globe.
The skills learned and developed in Scotland now go global. Workers commute to every corner of the known world, including Australia, New Guinea and anywhere they need highly skilled people to extract the black gold (oil). Today people would have left Aberdeen airport on route to the other side of the world to work for a month or more. Of the over 3400 oil and gas companies in Aberdeen many are industry leaders in the worldwide market.
Directional Drilling has been around for many years but there are new advances allowing more drilling possibilities.
Computer technology has brought un-manned oil wells.
In many parts of the world only one third of the oil in a well is extracted. In the North Sea it is getting closer to two thirds. While this is in part due to the unique rock structures that provide greater oil pressures, it is also as a result of advances in local companies’ abilities and technologies.
The Forties field was highly advanced for it’s time. However, BP sold it to Apache when it was nearing its’ predicted end.
Scotland will have an oil industry long after the oil in the North Sea runs out in the second half of this century. As long as it does not let it die out like the Clyde shipping industries. Unlike the shipping industry whose demise many blame on the Westminster government, if Scotland becomes independent in the near future, at least they will only be able to blame themselves if the industry was to diminish.
Everything in our modern world depends on energy. Things like light and heat are obvious but what about other things we take for granted like clean drinking water or medicine? Without energy our modern world would be transported back to pre-industrial revolution times. It has been said that any society is only three meals away from revolt, but stop the energy flow and revolt could happen even faster.
When the 2003 black out hit North America, people could not use their credit cards or public transport and if you stayed in floor 50 of a tower block, you had a mountain to climb just to get home.
Imagine every day carrying all your food and water up 50 floors after walking through several streets with it. Perhaps you would also have to negotiate gangs looking for an easy meal. Without energy, life would once again become a survival of the fittest and the meanest.
We have learned more in the last 50 years than we have in the entire previous period of human existence and that statement will be true for many years to come. Energy and information are the two most powerful commodities in human societies.
In the future, personal fabricators will take the place of microwave ovens in the average modern kitchen. As well as being able to provide a hot meal they will be able to build anything you request. You load materials into it and it extracts the atoms from that stuff and builds what you request from the atoms up. It will require a plan, designer plans or the latest model will cost money. It will also require the right atoms to be present in the stuff we give it. Recycling will take on a new dimension. After you tell it what you want and load the plan onto its system, it will tell you what atoms it requires. It may already have a surplus of some of the requirements from previous stuff you gave it, but it will require you to source new stuff. So let’s say you want to build a new computer and it has most of the atoms required except it needs more aluminium, copper, two different types of plastic and a little gold. It then gives you ideas for where you might find these atoms. E.g. drinks can, plumbing pipe, plastic container, vehicle console and earring. So then off you go and find the stuff it needs. Some stuff will become more expensive than others. You could shovel in some earth and let it process that to see if it can find what it needs.
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