THE North Sea oil industry is winding down and politicians and workers must start planning for the future "pretty quickly", oil veteran and government adviser Sir Ian Wood has warned.
Sir Ian, the founder of the Wood Group who conducted a recent review of offshore oil and gas recovery for the UK Government, said workers in Aberdeen have taken oil for granted but now need to change their thinking.
He has urged the SNP - who he praised as an able Scottish Government - to put their ambitions for Scottish independence "on the back burner for a long, long period of time" and focus on using their "significant additional powers" to make Scotland a better place.
"I had known Aberdeen pre-oil, I won't know Aberdeen post-oil, I will have gone, but there are generations out there who have always just taken it for granted, and who have become very, very dependent on the oil and gas industry," he said.
"They need to change their thinking.
"We have this notion that in some undefined time, say 30 or 40 years, oil will begin to wind down."
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