I never made that comment to turn this thread into a political discussion, and still don't wish it to become so. Scottish and Norwegian oil was discovered at the same time - I was just trying to highlight how all these years later, how differently it has panned out.
The fact is Norway kept it's oil/gas. When you get laid off there from your job, you get 62% off your average pay over the past 5 years until you get a new role. If you have to retrain they give you, no question, ~£20,000 to take as many courses as you like.
All of this is a result of keeping a hold of their resources, as beforehand it was a fairly poor country.
They are finding smaller oil fields all the time in the whole of the North Sea/Norwegian/Barents - in fact I was just on a brand new platform that was drilling a well found in a 40 year old field.
Problem is when a well is found on the UK side, it wil be an American/Canadian/French/Chinese firm that reaps the rewards - we get some income tax and employment from it, so it is correct in saying it won't fix our economy (as it was sold abroad by you know who
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