Scottish city prepares for when oil runs out

Offshore supply vessels resembling large, floating flat-backed trucks fill Victoria Dock, unable to find charters in a sign of the downturn in Britain’s oil industry.

With UK North Sea oil and gas production 44 percent below its peak, self-styled oil capital of Europe Aberdeen fears the slowdown is not simply cyclical: it is targeting diversification into areas including green energy.
Throughout a hydrocarbon heyday that has run to almost five decades, the city has to some extent been preparing for the end.

The oil industry that at one stage sparked talk of Scotland as “the Kuwait of the West” has already outlived most predictions.

“I’m steering my kids away from anything to do with oil,” said John Irvine, a lorry driver who used to work on the rigs. “It’s not going to last forever.”

Tourism, life sciences, and the export of oil services around the world are among Aberdeen’s targeted substitutes for North sea oil and gas — but for many the biggest prize would be to use its offshore oil expertise to build a renewable energy industry as big as oil.

The city aims to use its experience to become a leader in offshore wind, tidal power and carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS0 — industries it hopes will receive a boost from global climate change talks in Copenhagen in December.

“We have to harness that expertise and turn Aberdeen into the energy capital of Europe and not just the oil capital of Europe,” said Mike Rumbles, West Aberdeenshire Member of the Scottish Parliament, echoing a broad city marketing shift.

Reuters