There is an article in the Business section of today’s Sunday Times.
Included in the article by the respected Scottish financial journalist Michael Glackin there is a piece about the Barnett Formula.
He states that due to this year’s record block grant of £41 billion from Westminster known as the Barnett Formula Scotland receives about £126 per person for every £100 per person of equivalent U.K. Government spending in England.
The article further states that last month deputy first minister John Swinney had the nerve to write to the U.K. Government chancellor Nadhim Zahawi demanding more cash from Westminster to fund more public sector pay increases in Scotland.
If I had been the U.K. Government chancellor of the Exchequer I would have told John Swinney that his Scottish government this year received 25% more block grant income under the rules of the Barnett Formula than U.K. Government spending in England and the Scottish Government should ‘cut their cloth’ accordingly.
The amount of oil travelling down the Forties pipeline is about 40% of its previous peak level due to falling production in the North Sea oil fields whilst some of the big North Sea gas fields are off the English coast in the North Sea.
It has been well documented that the people living in the Orkney and Shetland Isles do not want to live in an independent Scotland and they would rather go it alone.
That means that they would be keeping the oil that is delivered to both islands for themselves and keep the taxation they received from the oil producers for themselves.
An independent Scotland would been in a far worse state financially than they are now if that happened.
The electorate in the Orkney and Shetland isles voting heavily in remaining part of the U.K. in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
I'm currently working on an expansion of the Clair field. Although not directly involved myself the company I work for has recently installed expansions to increase output from Foinavon - other companies are expanding fields in the same area. Rosebank is about to kick off, all of these all feed into the West Of Shetland Pipeline (WOSP). Any reason why the typical ranting unionist only ever quotes the Forties pipeline when saying how much condensate is produced by Scottish oil fields?
Shell are about to develop the Jackdaw field 250 Km east of Aberdeen which will peak at a production rate of 40,000 barrels of oil per day equivalent - I suppose that's off the English coast?
Patrick Harvie of the Greens wants to shut down all these oil fields in the North Sea.
I knew that production is also taking place in a large oilfield to the West of Shetland as I personally know a person on Islay who was working on this oilfield.
He previously told me that production in this oilfield to the West of Shetland was difficult during the winter months due to the frequent storms in the area.
I assume that oil which feeds into the West of Shetland pipeline will be landed at Sullom Voe and it would belong to an independent Shetland Isles if they did not want to remain in an independent Scotland.
It has previously been mentioned in the press that the electorate in the Orkney and Shetland Isles had the largest percentage vote in favour of Scotland remaining part of the U.K. of all the constituencies throughout Scotland in the September 2014 Scottish independence referendum.
The Orkney and Shetland Isles could easily declare independence from Scotland as there are large oil terminals situated in both Shetland and Orkney.
i worked on the CLAIR field when it first opened, its actually the the first rig in the Atlantic, they cant go any further west, because its too deep and would need to be rig ships.
It was quite common to get stuck on the Clair for an extra three or four days, not just in the winter, only drawback was you lost that time on your leave, because you were on a rota.