OIL revenues from the North Sea tumbled to a record low in the first quarter of 2015, leading the Conservatives to claim there is “no way an independent Scotland could survive” in the current circumstances.
Scotland’s geographical share of the proceeds fell by more than 75% during the period, according to Scottish government figures which show the amount received in tax receipts between January and March was £168m, down from £742m in the final three months of 2014.
The figures emerged at the end of a week in which Brent crude fell to just $45 a barrel — less than half the level it stood at when voters went to the polls in September’s independence referendum.
Last week the Fiscal Affairs Scotland think tank said the Scottish government’s latest oil forecasts showed that the country would be more than £7bn a year worse off if it became financially independent.
It concluded that even under the SNP government’s most optimistic forecasts for oil and gas revenue, Scotland would be £1,308 per head worse off under full fiscal autonomy or independence in 2019-20 than if it remained funded as part of the UK.
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The Westminster government has claimed the SNP’s oil revenue forecasts were wildly optimistic and that the slump would have blown a massive hole in the finances of an independent Scotland, while the Scottish Conservatives said the latest figures also underlined the case against the nationalist policy of full fiscal autonomy for Scotland.
In its oil and gas bulletin published in May 2014, the Scottish government estimated that oil revenues would be between £15.8bn and £38.7bn between 2014/15 and 2018/19.
Its latest bulletin, published in June this year, said that revenues could be as low as £2.4bn for 2016/17 to 2019/20, with its highest estimate at £10.8bn, based on a best-case scenario of the oil price returning to $100 a barrel.
Scottish Conservative finance spokesman Murdo Fraser said: “Whichever way you look at it, and with the best will in the world, there is just no way that an independent Scotland could survive on this.”
Deputy first minister John Swinney said: “Recent provisional figures from DECC [Department of Energy and Climate Change] suggest that May saw the most oil and gas produced in the North Sea since March 2012.
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“If this trend is sustained production could increase this year for the first time in 15 years.”