Individuals may find the price they pay for commodities such as heating oil goes up in future if the country is forced to import more of its supplies from overseas.
This is because, according to a diplomatic cable obtained by WikiLeaks and reported by the Scotsman, concerns have been raised that the North Sea is running out of the resource.
The 2008 memo from then energy minister Malcolm Wicks to the US government warned that reserves are declining by eight per cent a year.
It said: “The UK will experience a severe decrease in North Sea gas and oil stocks by 2020 and will need to improve its diversity of supply.”
However, energy expert at the University of Aberdeen Professor Alex Kemp told the newspaper there are likely to be large deposits of the commodity in the North Sea that have yet to be discovered.
Recently, Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond warned that a new higher tax rate of companies operating in the North Sea could result in a large
By: John King-Boiler Juice
