The Scottish Government has given assurances that it is “not against fracking”, according to the boss of a firm which runs Scotland’s largest petrochemical plant.
Jim Ratcliffe, the chief executive and chairman of Ineos, which runs the Grangemouth plant, has suggested an onshore shale gas industry could potentially be set up in Scotland within a few years, despite an indefinite moratorium on granting planning consent for fracking - the method of gas extraction.
The firm has ambitions to establish a large-scale shale gas industry, having acquired fracking exploration licences across 700 square miles of central Scotland.
An emergency summit convened in the wake of Westminster’s decision to scrap a subsidy scheme for onshore wind farms was attended by more than 200 people, the Scottish Government said.
Energy Minister Fergus Ewing organised the talks after the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced it would end payments under the Renewables Obligation a year early.
First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and others in the Scottish Government have already spoken out against the decision, which industry leaders Scottish Renewables fears could put up to £3 billion of investment in Scotland at risk.
Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing is to chair an emergency summit with the green energy sector today amid concerns about the impact of the UK Government’s decision to end a subsidy scheme for onshore wind farms.
Around 250 onshore wind projects already in development are likely to be cancelled because the Government is ending subsidies which would aid their completion, Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has announced.
The cancellation of subsidies for onshore wind offered under the Renewables Obligation (RO) is likely to mean that 2,500 turbines which were due to be built are scrapped, Ms Rudd said.
She said consumer bills will not rise and insisted the move would save taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds in subsidies that would otherwise have been paid out to energy projects.
Cutting public subsidies for onshore wind farms would result in job losses, rising energy bills and stranded communities, according to energy minister Fergus Ewing.
The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is expected to announce measures to deliver on the Conservatives’ manifesto pledge to end any new public subsidy for onshore wind farms.
Mr Ewing said he was concerned about reports that the new energy secretary Amber Rudd was considering closing the Renewables Obligation scheme - the main support for renewable electricity projects - a year early in 2016.
The move is opposed by the Scottish Government and the industry, which has said it is prepared to take legal action to fight “drastic and unfair” changes.
Nicola Sturgeon will today call on the UK Government to consult urgently on incentives to boost exploration in the North Sea.
The First Minister will make the demand at the annual Oil and Gas UK Conference in Aberdeen.
Figures show that North Sea exploration last year reached its lowest level in at least two decades, with 14 explorations wells drilled compared to 44 in 2008.
The Scottish Government claims the Westminster Government has yet to deliver any follow up action after committing at the end of 2014 to further work on options for supporting exploration through the tax system.
nd farms contribute almost £9 million a year to community projects across Scotland, new figures have shown.
The amount of community benefit cash paid to local good causes from on-shore wind farms has now reached just over £8.8 million a year, according to Local Energy Scotland.
Grants paid out under the scheme have helped with a wide range of projects, including sending members of a West Lothian dance school to the European Street Dance Championships in Germany.
Payments also allowed a new community hall to be build in Daviot, Aberdeenshire, and to a thermal imaging camera so residents in the Sutherland area of the Highlands can see where extra
insulation is needed.
A conservation group has urged politicians to act to protect the country’s scenic Highlands from further wind-farm developments.
The Friends of the Great Glen group says the Great Glen and Loch Ness area is under threat from a “multitude” of planning applications which could see the creation of hundreds of turbines and industrial infrastructure.
The group, which has submitted a petition on the issue to the Scottish Parliament, argues that current planning processes do not afford the tourist destination with enough protection.
The UK election has delivered an unexpected outcome, with Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron on course to stay in 10 Downing Street with a parliamentary majority.
That’s partly because the Tories defeated Liberal Democrat lawmakers in England. In Scotland, where Ed Miliband’s Labour opposition has been dominant for a generation, the Scottish National Party is set to win nearly all 59 House of Commons seats.
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary, lost the Twickenham district in southwest London he held since 1997. Tania Mathias, the Tory candidate, overcame a 12,140 majority to defeat Cable in one of the Liberal Democrats’ safest seats.
Global Energy, who own the Nigg Fabrication Yard, have had their plans for their own harbour rejected by the Scottish Government.
They had put forward plans to create their own harbour at the entrance to the Cromarty Firth.
However the Scottish Government threw out the bid on a legal technicality.
Imagine an uninformed stranger arriving in Scotland and examining what passes for an energy policy. What conclusions would be reached about the self-contradictory, self-defeating chaos that has been achieved so far?
On the one hand, we have a Scottish government which has made massive virtue out of a low-carbon energy policy, targeting a generation equivalent to 100% renewables.
On the other, we have one of Europe’s most polluting power stations scheduled for near-imminent closure.
Our passing stranger might reach one of two conclusions, or possibly both. First, the closure of Longannet is entirely consistent with the stated objectives of the current Holyrood administration.
The majority owner of MeyGen, the world’s largest tidal stream energy project- based in Caithness, has extended a construction contraction with a global defence contractor for the delivery of one of the largest capacity single rotor turbines ever built.
Atlantis’ new 1.5 megawatt AR1500 turbine will be built with the help of Lockheed Martin and is hoped to fulfil the company’s MeyGen project turbine supply obligations.
The 18 metre rotor diameter AR1500 turbine, scheduled for delivery dockside in Scotland in 2016, will be one of the largest capacity single rotor turbines ever built.
Funding has been secured for a £25 million green energy centre at St Andrews University which will create 225 jobs.
It is hoped the site at Guardbridge will help regenerate part of north-east Fife, with apprenticeships and opportunities in the construction of the centre.
The scheme is part of a drive by St Andrews to become the UK’s first carbon-neutral university.
A Holyrood committee is to hold an inquiry into the security of Scotland’s energy supply in the wake of news that Longannet power station is likely to close prematurely.
MSPs on the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee will take evidence on the UK electricity market with a focus on supply, demand and the transmission network.
It follows the announcement that the troubled coal-fired plant in Fife will “in all likelihood” shut by March 2016 after losing out on a short-term National Grid contract.
Operator Scottish Power said the station has been under pressure from higher transmission charges to connect to the grid due to its location.
More must be done to attract young people and women to work in Scotland’s energy industry, a new report concludes.
Attracting new entrants will be key to ensuring the future of the country’s oil, gas and renewable sectors, according to Skills Development Scotland (SDS).
It has published an updated skills plan for the industry, setting out priorities for developing the workforce against the backdrop of a fall in oil prices.
The market capitalisation of Scotland’s oil and gas companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market (Aim) fell by 31.9% to £373.5million as the sector was hit badly by the falling oil price during 2014.
A report by accountants and business advisers BDO – entitled Drilling Down: an Overview of Performance and Prospects of AIM Oil and Gas Companies in 2014 – found that the UK sector market capitalisation fell by 44% in 2014 to £4.9billion.
In Scotland there are four AIM-listed oil and gas companies accounting for 14.8% of the total number but constituting 36.2% of total market capitalisation.
A row broke out last night after a survey showed that the majority of people living in the north and north-east of Scotland support wind power.
The industry claimed the results shot down the “vocal minority” of objectors who claim that most Scots are opposed to giant turbines dotting the countryside.
But anti-windfarm campaigners said the findings had to be “taken with a bucket of salt” as they did not separate those who are “adversely affected”, mainly people living in rural areas and communities targeted by wind developers.
The amount of electricity produced by projects owned by local communities has increased by more than a quarter in the last year, the Scottish Government has revealed.
Ministers have set the target of having plants producing 500 megawatts (MW) of power in communities and local ownership by 2020.
The latest figures show such schemes can generate 361MW, up from 285MW in the previous year.
The increase was revealed by energy minister Fergus Ewing ahead of the Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) conference in Stirling.
The drop in crude prices has bumped Scotland's employment outlook down to its lowest level in two years, according to a new survey from recruitment agency Manpower.
At minus 1%, Scotland is the only part of the UK with a negative outlook going into the second quarter.
Energy minister Fergus Ewing has announced a moratorium on granting planning consents for fracking developments in Scotland to allow a full public consultation on the controversial issue.
Mr Ewing also announced a programme of further research would be carried out into the technique to look at planning, environmental regulation and the impact on public health.
Environmental campaigners had called on the Scottish Government to rule out hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, for shale gas after a move to introduce a UK-wide moratorium was heavily defeated at Westminster on Monday.
Scotland’s Energy Minister Fergus Ewing hopes four major wind arrays in the firths of Forth and Tay will be built despite a major legal challenge to their development.
Bird protection charity RSPB Scotland sent shockwaves through the sector in Scotland earlier this month after a last-minute move to seek judicial review of Mr Ewing’s decision to grant consents for the Neart na Gaoithe, Inch Cape and Seagreen Alpha and Bravo arrays.
It is understood the RSPB’s application will come before the courts for the first time in late May and there are concerns within the industry the legal process will prove both costly and lengthy.
The plunge in oil prices represents a “negative shock” to the Scottish economy, Bank of England governor Mark Carney said.
Mr Carney maintained that the decline - which has fed through to ultra-low inflation which it is hoped will boost consumer spending - was an overall positive development for the UK.
But he admitted that Scotland, which is heavily reliant on North Sea reserves, would face a hit from the fall, which has seen the price of a barrel of Brent crude tumble by more than half since last summer to below $50, a near six-year low.
The First Minister spoke to Energy Voice on her first to Aberdeen since becoming leader of the SNP party.
To help the industry, the Scottish Government is setting up an energy jobs taskforce.
Nicola Sturgeon said that the “recent drop in the price of a barrel of crude oil” as well as the UK Government’s “mismanagement” of the tax regime for oil and gas could “pose a threat to a number of jobs”.
