OIL forecasts used by the Scottish Government to support its case for independence are "aspirational" and unlikely to be realised, a senior industry figure has warned.
Former CBI Scotland chairman Melfort Campbell, who chaired a review of North Sea taxation and regulation for the Scottish Government backed comments by Sir Ian Wood, who this week accused the Scottish Government of over-estimating remaining oil reserves by at least 40 per cent.
The oil tycoon said the "best outcome" would be to recover a further 15 to 16.5 billion barrels in the coming decades.
However Alex Salmond defended his government's use of the industry's maximum estimate of future reserves, 24 billion barrels.
In a statement yesterday, Mr Campbell said expert reports had agreed that between 12 billion and 24 billion barrels were recoverable from the North Sea.
But he added: "The 24 billion figure is the aspirational scenario - the ultimate prize that we could win if there is a radical review of the fiscal and regulatory regimes and improved stewardship of the North Sea.
"This figure takes account of present, potential and probable discoveries.
"However, as our report states, the UK North Sea is at a crossroads. With current uncertainty, ageing assets, spiralling costs and the challenges of improving production efficiency and attracting investment, we will be hard-pushed to achieve the mid-range scenario of around 15-16 billion let alone the holy grail of 24 billion barrels."
Labour's Douglas Alexander said: "It is becoming clear that the figures on which Alex Salmond bases his economic argument simply do not add up."
However, Mr Salmond's claims were supported by Aberdeen University oil economist Professor Alex Kemp, who said 24 billion barrels was a "plausible" forecast.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article