Britain's Missed Oil Opportunity

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[@Olav3D]

As a Norwegian I appreciate Asianometry covering this little known part of Asia. 😋

[@Felix-nz7lq]

We share a neighbor with North Korea so I say it counts

[@sblinder1978]

What is Europe, if not Asia persevering to the west?

[@Brucey69]

The video covers UK history over a century, that includes the period when the British controlled India. India is in Asia. The channel author always tries to tie in perspective from Asian countries.

[@donsergio2406]

It should be added that Norway also built and manage an incredible sovereign investing fund from its oil revenues that will guarantee generations of Norwegians to have a peaceful and wealthy retirement. Only a few of OPEC countries can rival what they have achieved.

[@williamthebonquerer9181]

Norway also has more oil, cheaper to exploit oil and far less people than the UK

[@InnuendoXP]

​@@williamthebonquerer9181 yes, but the UK could've done more to ensure wealth generated by it would pay ongoing dividends to the people of the UK than it did. Similar to Australia's mining boom in the 90s, where a huge amount of wealth extraction was allowed to take place & very little paid back outside private hands.

[@PointyHairedJedi]

Yeah, that was a real missed opportunity for us - and it occasionally got half-heartedly brought up as being a possible boon to an independent Scottish economy back before the 2014 vote, but given the fields are in decline we missed the boat on creating such a British/Scottish sovereign wealth fund by decades. The Orkneys and Shetlands have at least done locally very well out of oil, with each hosting a major terminal (Flotta and Sullom Voe, respectively).

[@williamthebonquerer9181]

@@InnuendoXPanother terrible comparison that proves my point, mining in Australia is 10% of its economy, oil in the uk was such a small sector of the UK economy I can't even find it as a percentage, in 2013 all mining and hydrocarbons in the uk added $30 billion to the economy when it has a GDP of over $2000 billion.

[@williamthebonquerer9181]

@@InnuendoXP you do realise Norway is an exception with exceptional circumstances not every country can just do what Norway does, otherwise they would

[@aw34565]

One point about the UK economy and North Sea Oil, in the 1980s the Pound behaved like a petrocurrency, leaving it overvalued in the early 1980s which in turn caused another round of deindustrialization as UK industry was unable to compete. In fact, much of the oil revenue was simply spent on paying benefits to unemployed workers who lost their jobs in the early Thatcher years. "If the Cabinet do not have the wit and imagination to reconcile our industrial needs with the fact of North Sea oil, they would do better to leave the bloody stuff in the ground" as Michael Edwardes, the chairman of British Leyland said.

[@stonward]

Wow, - remember that guy continually dismantling Leyland/British car industry....!

[@glynluff2595]

Well yes and no! Nobody at the time had the wit or desire to realise were world economies were going. Thatcher was quite proud of the fact that a considerable part of the National debt was repaid. We have also to look at the opposition parties who used the income to finance their own political desires. None of the parties did very well but the workforce issues spilled over into the oilfields politically. I was there and I and others saw it. The Americans wished for the workforce to run to their own contracts but Britain would not allow this. It was a no rights contract a finger the the helideck and you were off! We saw it with non British workers. The Americans could only work as foremen with specialist skills and many had neither ability. Much argument ensued over engineering as while they could sort of manage flameproof as a concept BASEFA was a concept they could not understand. Many things could not be done as there was not the facility or capacity world wide to produce specific industrial products world wide at the level oil companies wished to use them. There was also the problem that electrical circuits erected in one part of Europe would not co relate to others erected elsewhere. It was also a time when British industry was on the cusp of changing from home production of an old coal/steel economy to an economy of concept which left a huge workforce with nowhere to go and we still suffer from that. An economist interviewed on television at the time stated we we moving to the state of being a garage economy which he defined as large numbers of organisations employing 50 people or fewer. I think he was on target there as the really large organisations are either international or government funded. It was a message none wished to hear. What many people still don’t realise is that there are oil reserves in the Irish Sea. I know this as in error samples and reports were inadvertently sent to a North Sea oil rig. The Irish government did not wish them operated on as they would destroy the economy which was not as organised as Norway. To that degree Michael Edwards was right and it stayed in the ground!

[@occamraiser]

I absolutely disagree. The mass unemployment of the 1970s/1980s (and I was there, watching, by the way) was the result of global economic realignment AND Thatcherite 'economic modernisation'. The strength of the pound was NOT the cause of the destruction of the UK's heavy and manufacturing industries - it was the rise of the low wage far eastern manufacturers. Followed the further rise of high tech heavy industries in the developed parts of the far east. No one wanted a ship built on the Tyne or the Tees or the Clyde, by boilermakers who were continually on strike to maintain pay differentials over other trades in the shipyard. No one wanted a British Leland car - built by workers who hated their jobs their management and their products - who were working to rule whenever they weren't on strike (surely this is the downside of the government being your employer..... a limitless money tree to try to farm. No one wanted bulk steel from British Steel, which is why we went into specialist steel as the industry died. No one needed to buy fertilizer made on Teesside when gas-rich countries were able to make it at a fraction of the cost. Britain's gas fields were an absolute boon - but they weren't cheap to operate. Most of the North Sea Oil revenue at the time went to pay the dole for the unemployed from old obsolete (American's use the rather descriptive term 'rust-belt' area) industries. De-industrialisation was a systematic issue of world economic realignment - shipbuilding moved to the far east, so did electronics manufacture, so did the bulk of car making, so did steel manufacture. It was unrelated to the strength of the pound because it happened to everyone..... except the French who had a very strong protectionist wall around their economy, but which cost them in terms of standard of living as they insisted on making as much as possible themselves - and inevitably somewhat less efficiently.

[@occamraiser]

@@stonward Yes, but it was already unable to compete. I was driving an Austin Maxi at the time..... if your car hadn't rusted through after 5 years you were jubilant. By then the Japanese were selling cars that didn't rust, and didn't break down and who's electrics didn't fail every time you drove through a puddle. Likewise the coal industry was shut down in a politically insensitive, one could say aggressively combative manner, but remember, it was making a loss across the board - only the generously high price of coal from the CEGB made the numbers look credible - but we all financed that through our electricity bills. None of the deep mined pits have been reopened after the Tories left power, and all those that remained have shut down - the NCB was a loss making operation. So were 'British Shipbuilders' and 'Upper Clyde Shipbuilders'. I watched the regular reports of all these organisations' slow deaths..... they weren't murdered they were dying and the country stopped throwing money at them to keep them going.....I personally would dance on Thatcher's grave for the way she did things AND her personal motivation for what she did - but most of the major industrial dramas were inevitable.

[@himanshusingh5214]

They should have invested the money for the future, keeping inflation and wages in check for other industries to survive and maybe fund research in new industries.

[@geneballay9590]

Very interesting and well done presentation. Starting in early 1977 I worked the oil fields for 36 years in 15 countries around the world, and did not know these details. Thank you for sharing.

[@RK-cj4oc]

How did you ever get started in the oil fields?Any tips?

[@Tribuneoftheplebs]

​@@RK-cj4oc I live in Alberta and when oil is booming they cant find enough workers. Idk where you are but moving closer to where the oil is probably helps!

[@jeffbenton6183]

@@Tribuneoftheplebs Where you drilling in the oil sands in Alberta, or are there other oil resources that I don't know about? (I don't know much at all about Canada's oil industry, other than it's huge, and some of it is from oil sands).

[@Tribuneoftheplebs]

@@jeffbenton6183 there is oil all over the prairies but the large oil sands mines around Fort McMurray account for 97% of Canada's oil production. Plenty of O&G servicing jobs/companies in Edmonton (my father came to Canada to work at one of these) and the oil companies have their corporate offices in Calgary.

[@algo5052]

😂

[@EmperorBun]

Great new entry to the "Britain's Missed XXXX Opportunity" series. Can't wait to see what's next lol

[@johnstirling6597]

No mention of the sovereign wealth fund that Norway set up that is directly linked to North Sea oil production, the UK has no such similar fund.

[@martinmacdonald5773]

Surprised too it was not referenced- Norway’s SWF is reportedly worth over $1.3 trillion as at Jan 2023.

[@johnstirling6597]

@@martinmacdonald5773 Rather short sighted of the then, (and subsequent) UK govmt not even to consider such a fund, could really do with that now.

[@simonmarshall3869]

The UK parliament had discussions about such a fund and decided it was better to have money now. I do not agree with them. But they were not stupid

[@johnstirling6597]

@@simonmarshall3869 Short term political gain sacrificing long term societal stability.

[@1873Winchester]

@@johnstirling6597 The UK political culture is fundamentally incapable of thinking like that. It's soley a combo of archaric aristocracy having too much power, along with coruption, giving breaks to mates and donors, and tax evasion. It was much better for humanity that Norway got it.

[@paulkurilecz4209]

I worked for a company that entered into a letter agreement in 1965 with British Gas and Amerada Hess concerning investments in North Sea oil and gas development. It resulted in minority ownership stakes in 14 oil and gas fields in the British and Norwegian sectors, the largest of which was a 5% stake in the Ekofisk Field. These North Sea assets, along with other assets in Indonesia, Denmark, the Netherlands and Alaska sold in 1989 for $1.4 billion. As we joked at the time, that was a pretty good return for the cost of a 25 cent stamp.

[@Houthiandtheblowfish]

meaning it was thought of as worthless

[@paulkurilecz4209]

@@Houthiandtheblowfish Not really. People had been looking at the North Sea for quite some time, but it was recognized that E&P was going to be extremely expensive. Other companies were also forming partnerships. The reason for my company joining in was its expertise at designing and constructing offshore pipelines and processing facilities. British Gas had no experience offshore but wanted the natural gas for its onshore system. Amerada Hess was a solid company when it came to E&P. Thus the three companies together had the experience and talent for completing the entire project. Therefor it is quite common in offshore O&G development for different companies to partner in order to spread the the risk. Also the southern sector of the North Sea was considered a rank wildcat area, one of the riskiest places to be. It was thought that it would be possible for the sandstone reservoirs that were in onshore Holland might, just might extent out to the North Sea. For example I can put all of my resources on one venture and own 100% but I can also lose everything if it doesn't work out. Or I can put 10% of my assets into 10 different ventures. Even if some of them are unsuccessful, the other successful efforts will carry the losses. To understand this, look at the topic of "Gambler's Ruin". Also, it is a pretty common occurrence to have letter agreements to document a potential common project in a wildcat area. From my perspective, it was an idea that did pan out. . PS: The letter agreement was done several years before the first well was ever drilled or the first seismic survey started.

[@sindreherstad8739]

Drawing the seaborder with Norway anywhere other than the median would be a tough fight as Norway in this time perriode fought hard to get as much sea as possible, mainly for fishing. I think Norway and iceland are the main reason you can draw the border at the continental shelf, for example

[@PropaneWP]

I'm no expert but I don't see any rationale behind drawing the border at the trench line. It feels like the sort of decision that would have had to be backed up with threats rather than convincing arguments.

[@sindreherstad8739]

@@PropaneWP yeah. The trench argument would probbably end upp in the UN where the poor Norwegian fishermenn would probbably gain some symphaties over English oil companies. I would guess that the trench argument arrose after Norway became wealthy from its oil, and that some think "that could be us". The main flaw here is that it wasnt the quantity of Norwegian oil, but rather the strattegy that worked

[@paulkurilecz4209]

The trench is a geographic and geologic feature that clearly delineates between the UK and Scandinavia (Norway). The midpoint is usually used when there are no defining features between countries. The Norwegian Trench is clearly different than when the mid-point line was drawn for the southern portion of the North Sea. Another reason for going with the midpoint line is one of pragmatism, that is, an agreement between the UK and Norway would be easier to achieve. Plus at the time, the focus was more on the southern sector of the North Sea due to what was found in onshore Holland. As was mentioned in the story, the northern sector of the North Sea was considered to be relatively devoid of oil and gas. However what changed that is the discovery of significant oil and gas resources in the Austin Chalk area of of South Central Texas in the area centered around Giddings. The Northern Sector of the North Sea produced from similar formations and the knowledge gained in the Austin Chalk allowed for the development of the chalk reservoirs in the northern sector of the North Sea.

[@freedomfighter22222]

@@sindreherstad8739 The Trench argument arose at the time of the division, but not on the British side, the British wanted a fast process and also focused on the southern parts of the sea. Norway had an entirely different view on the importance of the deal and considered things like the British possibly trying to push for the border to go at the Trench. It was one of the fears of the Norwegian politicians that never materialized, as far as I've heard it didn't really cross the mind of the British at all at the time since they were just planning to test a few fields close to the Scottish coast in the northern parts of the north sea anyway.

[@sindreherstad8739]

@@freedomfighter22222 Thats a cool fact. Thx!

[@mogreen19]

Great content as usual. As you mentioned Groningen gas fields several times - I have been living in the Netherlands for 8 years and they have been in the news a lot, the Groningen gas fields had to be turned off because the collapsing of empty gas chambers caused and is still causing earthquakes that have damaged thousands of homes and made dozens of homes uninhabitable already. So there is going to be a high cost for the dutch for the Groningen gas fields, repairing all those homes and moving some people making the cheap gas from half a century ago really expensive now.

[@paulkurilecz4209]

However, once withdrawal is stopped from Groningen, the subsidence will stop. The Gronigen Gas Field is one of the largest in the world with original gas in place estimated at some 9,782 billion cubic feet. What is interesting is that due to the large size of the Gronigen Field, its gas composition affects the gas transmission and distribution network on mainland Europe to this day. The gas from Gronigen has a high nitrogen content that results in a heating value of about 900 Btu/cubic foot. To this day, natural gas imports to Europe have nitrogen added to them to reduce the heating value and retain the same burning characteristics of the Gronigen Field gas. The Dutch government started reducing the production many years ago from Gronigen and due to additional earthquakes and subsidence have accelerated the shutdown of the field. Also it wasn't so much as collapsing of empty chambers, but the compaction of the production formation due to the loss of support of the pressurized gas in the field. The Gronigen formation is a very high porosity, poorly consolidated sandstone.

[@zhoubaidinh403]

Whon blew up them pipes my man..................

[@rogink]

@@paulkurilecz4209 You seem to be knowledgeable but why make such an absurd statement "once withdrawal is stopped from Groningen, the subsidence will stop"? Abandoned coal mines from the last two centuries cause this problem today.

[@CompleteAnimation]

8:05 It's quite rare for actual footage to be part of your videos! I was surprised to see this bit actually moving!

[@corneliushojl7994]

Hello, just to comment that I have been a member of ASPO since 2007 and already at that time we were discussing this situation that we saw from all the oil producers who behaved as if it were never going to end. Mexico, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, etc.. All of them incur current fiscal expenses well above their means, especially when they reach their particular PEAKOIL and commit authentic accounting and scientific atrocities (geological metrological) to maintain a flow of investment on a collision course with the intention of keeping cross interests alive. Until the oil runs out. The case of Norway is special but not different, the operating assets were treated with exquisite professionalism, the problem will be in the financial part. Greetings and thanks for these videos, I do not miss one.

[@H0mework]

You mentioned the Netherlands finding the natural gas, but you didn't say anything about dutch disease. Could the reason they don't do more now be related? Norway did well with their pension system, so it can be done, in comparison to Venezuela.

[@lakrids-pibe]

The "dutch disease" is a very interesting subject. Norway learned a lot from that.

[@user-bi7xd8ry5p]

That is a very complicated matter delving deep in economic theory. Furthermore there's still no consensus on how to effectively combat Dutch disease due to its highly regional nature. So I don't think he's going to be discussing it soon.

[@ihmpall]

Don’t know about the Dutch disease but I’ve heard about the Dutch Rudder and the Dutch Oven.

[@Merle1987]

He's mentioned it in other videos.

[@ronblack7870]

well Uk would have 10 times as many pensioners as norway.

[@dlewis8405]

France was in a similar situation when oil prices spiked in the early 70s but they did not have a big oil field to tap so they went all in on nuclear. Now they get like 60 percent of their electricity from nuclear, a carbon free power source.

[@Henning_Rech]

At a very high cost of ownership, heavily subsidized by tax money. The truth is that they built a good part of the reactors for nuclear weapon technology.

[@dlewis8405]

@@Henning_Rech Subsidized sure, but for a country like France without its own oil reserves it made sense. France francs spent in France on French workers. Today there are new nuclear technologies appearing that should be more cost effective and might only require modest subsidies.

[@Dave_Sisson]

That sounds a lot like the Bass Strait oil fields in south eastern Australia. Similar sea conditions that also began in the late 1960s and most oil and gas fields are now nearly exhausted.

[@DanielSMatthews]

Bass Strait is only 100 meters, or less, deep.

[@Dave_Sisson]

@@DanielSMatthews Much of the oil and gas is located in deeper water to the east of the geographical Bass Strait, but some of it is in shallower and stormier waters of Bass Strait proper.

[@stonward]

Appreciate the point - but Aus is a little like Scotland - lots of land, no people.....

[@nonnius2861]

Your point around 2:00 is fascinating to me. Here in the UK the discovery of gas fields in the 60s and 70s is almost never linked to the decline of coal as an energy source. It's presented in the popular discourse as almost entirely a political choice that victimised miners, which I suppose it was, but based upon the cheapness, reliability and development of natural gas and the laws of supply and demand.

[@ThePirateParrot]

​@@Beanbeeb let be clear here what thatcher did didnt just kill the mining industry. She sold all the state industries. She gutted the Northern industrial cities. Inequality greatly increased and we established the most geographically unequal country in Europe.

[@davidcarey9135]

Natural gas and oil are superior fuels to coal - about twice the energy density.

[@peterfireflylund]

@@ThePirateParrot let’s be clear: you don’t understand economics.

[@ThePirateParrot]

@@peterfireflylund I have some qualifications that would say otherwise. I will stick to facts as I sense an arguement is pointless. During the 1980s inequality increased significantly in the UK. It has not come down since. Second England has the most severe geographical divide economically in Europe. You can draw a line through Watford gap and North West of it the difference income is greater than the divide between South and North Italy or east and west Germany. Both of these things happened in the 1980s.

[@kubhlaikhan2015]

Britain still has huge coal reserves. Unfortunately the mines and the mining tradition (its skilled miners) were not only closed, they were deliberately destroyed for political reasons. North Sea oil was a short-term buffer that allowed a reactionary British government to pursue a class war to the long term detriment of the entire economy and Britain's social fabric. If the government declares a world war tomorrow (and it might) it will have neither the energy security nor the public loyalty that won the previous two. That's the real legacy.

[@PropaneWP]

Regarding the borders drawn up in the video, why would drawing a border at a trench line be more "proper" than the current border? Is the word "proper" just another word for "advantageous" in this case? I'm no expert on drawing borders, but this seems like a biased conclusion that would have been hugely disadvantageous (not to mention unfair) for Norway.

[@senatorhung]

the issue is that many maritime borders are drawn in relation to the continental shelf rather than the equidistances between shorelines. navigating those differences can take years or even decades of arbitration, which according to the video, the british were loathe to endure.

[@davidcarey9135]

North Sea oil basically staved off economic collapse in the UK in the 1970s. Economic collapse is now returning full steam with the decline of production and the coal and nuclear sectors being in even worse shape now than back then. I don't think there is much appreciation amongst energy blind politicians about how bad things are likely to get economically in the next 10 years.

[@tonners.pettitt9938]

East Midlands Province is a new one but thankyou for acknowledgement of our existence! The English North/South divide argument for some reason leaves an entire 1/3 of the country out!

[@motomario8795]

As someone who works in this industry in the UK for a Norwegian company I can say that 10 years ago most of my work in engineering revolved around local assets & projects. More recently the big engineering projects we do are ending up in other parts of the world. We still do the engineering, qualification, support the manufacturing, etc but the actual building of stuff and installation is all going further a field in recent times.

[@NaderNabilart]

You mentioned socialism as a hindrance to British oil & gas industries, wasn't the Norwegian oil & gas also kinda socialist? state owned, very powerful workers union? some people call it state capitalism.

[@nekomakhea9440]

"not the first time the UK failed to draw a proper border" lmao

[@PropaneWP]

This part had me confused. How would drawing the border at the trench line be more proper? It just looks like a vicarious argument for drawing a border that would be hugely unfair and disadvantageous to Norway.

[@robinmorritt7493]

@@PropaneWP Traditionally, the limit of the continental shelf was used as the border.

[@Houthiandtheblowfish]

some might say not a mistake

[@JoshuaC923]

😂😂😂

[@vindolanda6974]

India - Pakistan not much they could do. The borders in the Middle East created with the French after WW1 were worse.

[@MyEconomics101]

14:50 When mentioning 300bn £ tax income ... why not mention Norway's sovereign wealth fund in comparison? 1.3tn USD in value.

[@BLUEGENE13]

as always great video essays Asionemetry!

[@simonlinser8286]

Has anyone else ever wished they had an abandoned platform to themselves and could live on it and start a tiny island colony? Ive never really been on the ocean, or a platform so i have no idea if that's even possible. But some of them look like small towns/ cities and seem like there would be plenty of stuff for living on. You could probably grow plants on them if you distilled water or collected rain water and fishing for food, it would be so cool.

[@Houthiandtheblowfish]

yeah sounds like a great political idea creating a 21st century venice man made island city state but you would quickly experience color reveloution as you have lower taxes and created competition for other nation states

[@PhysicsGamer]

@@Houthiandtheblowfish A bunch of yahoos on an oil rig would not be "competition for other nation states"

[@JoshuaC923]

Bought be a good idea, but looking at what the weather might do, I'll prefer to stay on land

[@kiwidodo9476]

Look up "Sealand"

[@ArawnOfAnnwn]

There's already even smaller versions of this. Look up the Principality of Sealand for example. It's cute and all, but no one recognizes such gimmick 'nations'. Also life on an abandoned rig would be miserable, not cool, assuming you could even get by there without the regular shipments of stuff that they're normally reliant on. Even the Sealand folks don't actually live there, just lay claim to it.

[@JohnnieWalkerGreen]

1:00 --- I was not aware that "Royal" Shell is Dutch no more.

[@my0wn0p1n10n]

Due to (dividend) tax benefits for shareholders they moved their HQ to London.

[@ppolo12]

All went to tory purses

[@monstrositylabs]

Socialism dumbo

[@ncey8713]

The Crown Estate more like! Someone has to pay for their gold toilets..

[@williamthebonquerer9181]

Blair had a decade to fix what you perceive as thatchers mistakes

[@teddyshapedsoap]

Thanks Asianometry, keep it poggin' my man.

[@Michael_Brock]

Yeah UK should have copied Norway. Their sovereign wealth fund is the largest in the world. They ring fenced the oil revenue, and only drew out some of the profits from investment. The UK just routed the revenue into general budget. Also up until around 2000 the UK was making more gas and oil revenue than Norway.

[@Michael_Brock]

Lastly if the median line was chosen rather than the Norwegian deep sea trench, every other formula than one chosen would have put most of the Ekofisk oil field in the UK sector, think these was about a dozen formula to choose from, obviously UK did not know that oil field was there, but another missed opportunity.

[@zaxarispetixos8728]

Norway has as much people as half o london they do not even know what to do with so much money

[@rickden8362]

Another outstanding lesson missed opportunities. However, review @13:38 said ''platforms become economical''. I believe you meant ''uneconomical'' 😉. Keep up the great work work.

[@jameshumphreys-mr1iu]

Thanks - another really good survey. One quibble - the failure of the UK shipbuilders to seize the opportunities (10.50) wasn't really about state control. That didn't come until 1977.

[@cdogensis6392]

I don't think he was referring to state control, more the hold of socialism, particularly the unions, who railed against efficiencies to protect their members rights, (demarcation was rife), allowing shipyards elsewhere in the world to steal a march on UK yards.

[@tomwills1163]

Did the UK govt use of the oil revenue to create a sovereign Wealth fund?

[@nickflynn666]

No we didn't. That was a mistake as it pushed up the value of the pound temporarily in a way that harmed British industry. A kind of mild Dutch disease. Even if we had we couldn't have benefited to the extent Norway had done as our population is more than 10 times larger.

[@christopherflack7629]

@@nickflynn666 Also Norway's share of the North Sea and gas and oil reserves are ~7? X larger?

[@stonward]

No, and that is simply criminal - now even our own pension funds won't invest in it because of the Green Nonsense.

[@PropaneWP]

@@nickflynn666 A 1.3 trillion dollar fund always helps, especially considering that over half of the value consists of investment revenue.

[@tomooo2637]

A large proportion was used to provide large cuts in tax for high earners, with a drop from 80% to 40% for the highest waged.

[@HexerPsy]

There are windmill parks that also double as reefs for fish and wildlife. The most economical way of getting rid of the foundation, is letting it be reefs, if the paint and metals can be safely left there.

[@emilhuseynov6121]

I wonder at this point besides financial services how is Britain hoping to keep up with the world. It looks more like it will turn into Hong Kong with its over reliance on finance.

[@H0mework]

It already has. It's the center of dark money. It also produces weapons which I think are still of excellent quality and sales are still rising. Internally it looks like it's mainly services based. I bet the NHS is a significant amount.

[@ianeria]

Finance is all we have. Politicians across both benches are absolutely incompetent and devoid of vision, infrastructure has been neglected for years (outside of recent decisions like HS2, which is massively overcost due to contrived government contracts and NIMBYism). You only have to look to things like the sale of ARM to Softbank to see the UK government for what it is, no other country would have been insane enough to allow it.

[@stonward]

Hong Kong has done okay until very recently - with Brexit I think we should become the Singapore/Hong Kong of/off Europe....

[@mrgreatauk]

​@@stonward Facilitating business deals & finance in Europe is harder since Brexit - Republic of Ireland is more likely to act like that.

[@alexanderphilip1809]

@@ianeria Manufacturing in the UK is hard since that would require discipled workers and manageable/cordial worker-management relations. Brits did a great job of exporting socialist/unionist paraphernalia across their former colonies, now deal with the consequences. British left is deeply hostile when it comes to re-industrialization by endorsing dysfunctional policies and the British right is outright apathetic. Setting aside Brexit which was necessary there are few advanced economies that have wasted their potential and refused to plan for the future as much as UK.

[@CannedMan]

I would love a follow-up to this one focussing on the other side of the median line and how the opportunity was _not_ missed.

[@williamthebonquerer9181]

The UK's missed opportunity was finding the oil at a bad time, the UK used oil to finally get back on track.

[@llylite]

Thanks!

[@peternzioki4555]

thank you for the great documentary

[@shopshop144]

Ok, Norway did things differently, but does that by itself mean their reserves are lasting longer?

[@TAD-9]

Technology has to a degree offset the hypothetical declining output of older wells to some degree. If we don't innovate we go broke. We also search for new fields, where the state refunds a large part of the cost even if the companies don't find anything. This model makes it very attractive to go here as the economic risk is lower.

[@MyKharli]

Norway is a climate change fail also choosing short term wealth over long term survivability ,it should have all stayed in the ground .

[@TAD-9]

@@MyKharli Norway isn't to blame. If you chose to consume oil as a part of your energy mix that's on you. Better to buy from Norway than from some dictatorship. We treat our workers good and we don't fund terrorism.

[@MyKharli]

@@TAD-9 There's still a climate catastrophe that will probably spell doom for billions due to fossil fuel use however well you spin it .

[@ryandick9649]

Perhaps another way to view it is that the value of the oil and gas reserves in Britain were used up or collected by a wealthy few who were connected to oil companies or political wheels, while the value of the oil and gas reserves in Norway were collected and preserved for the benefit of all of the citizens of Norway both at the time and in the future.

[@tombeegeeeye5765]

If I recall Japan and South Korea were already far more efficient in shipbuilding than either the UK or the US.

[@jorganville]

Decommissioning some oil rigs is likely to waste a ton of money. There is research showing that these rigs can act as natural reefs. And therefore we should aim to leave some of these supports behind, once we have removed hazardous materials from them. Instead the UK is wasting billions removing them entirely and destroying environmental biodiversity. It's a rare win-win that the UK is now squandering.

[@alanbell6999]

Scotland missed oil opportunity Maggie doing

[@albal156]

100% a missed opportunity for us (I live in the UK). Maybe we thought the oil would be more sustainable like Saudi Arabia or Russia and we spaffed it on things that (in hindsight) we should have used to invest in future technologies: Thatcher era blanket tax cuts for the rich which didn't really work and Post 2008 I see as not worth the investment as the tax cuts were for an industry which isn't going to be our golden goose going forward (especially in light of Brexit), benefits to the industries broken in such a short timeframe by Thatcher (we should have been scaling down coal but the oil companies hid their research on climate change from us!), and many (now considered) botched privatisations over the Thatcher and Major governments which don't return value today were sold at a low market price to begin with and also preclude further investment (our waterways are currently so old and underinvested in that raw sewage is constantly being pumped into them from storm overflows). I can think of semiconductors as one thing but we were already behind the US at that point and weren't going to catch up but it would have been nice to have something here making those technologies and having a niche in that market and industry (ARM notwithstanding). Otherwise we should have been making bets on our service economy, realising we needed to be one of the first to start investing into renewables, building additional nuclear power stations (after Chernobyl and the economics of this during the 1980s due to other accidents elsewhere, this was difficult however) or seeing what parts of our manufacturing sector had large markets that would create a return on the investment we were putting in. Science and research is also something we are quite good at in the UK so continued investment in this should have been thought (and should continue to be invested in) about too (if it indeed wasn't.)

[@yon2004]

A video about the balance of payments video would be appreciated.

[@lombardo141]

Imagine if Britain had discovered oil much earlier in its history before or at the same time oil was discovered in its colonies. How different history would have turned out.

[@oolieboolieyeah]

They would have just left it in the ground. Neither the technology nor the oil prices at the time would have been able to support extraction.

[@abum4595]

they did in the trucial states but withdrew anyway

[@dom1310df]

Swan Hunter, once a major shipyard, is now used to cut up oil rigs. A prime example of the state of our industry.

[@smeagle3295]

The spam bot is going HARD in the comments section on this one. 🤦‍♂️

[@averageadventure200]

make one about norway too, it's an interesting comparison, as both Britain and Norway was in the same position but took different paths

[@desidesigning]

What an amazing report!

[@AgentSmith911]

Can you please do one of Norway's petroleum ventures too?

[@glynluff2595]

I don’t think this is overly well produced. The British oil was not a self sufficient industry because of its oil format. It comes out as sort of dirty 3 in 1. All heavy oils and greases have to be imported. To compare with the Norwegian industry and taxation system is not comparable as they were a country with a small population, about 5 million, so the money earned had to be removed substantially from the immediate economy to preserve the individual family economy. In Britain still struggling with war debt from WWII and the Korean War which was half as much as WWII the release of oil onto the international market allowed considerable relief. The British population was about 58 million so more could be released into the economy which was at last trying to shake off the coal/steel/heavy engineering image image and head to newer and cleaner horizons aided by some rather dumb political decisions. This is not given credence in the commentary but most history has a bias which usually relates to the money which supports it. All history relates to money because only money can influence the politics that surrounds it and this has been so for 5000 years or so. Remember language was really invented to describe numbers!

[@ronjon7942]

Interesting point.

[@alexandre8869]

Dear, I’m surprised that you didn’t say anything about FPSO technical.

[@learneconomics2021]

Its surprising the UK is today energy dependent with such big reserves. Politicians always between people and wealth to be gained

[@williamthebonquerer9181]

It's reserves aren't big enough for domestic consumption and the UK also has trillion dollars of coal, that doesn't mean it's profitable to extract

[@stonward]

@@williamthebonquerer9181 No, but we could use the coal to produce gas as before - no reason this has to be environmentally catastrophic in this day and age...

[@learneconomics2021]

@@williamthebonquerer9181 if you check current coal prices... sure its economically feasible

[@williamthebonquerer9181]

@@learneconomics2021 by the time u open up a coal mine and do all that's needed for exploitation the prices will go back to pre war levels and u will make the same mistake Egypt did during the American civil war

[@PhysicsGamer]

@@learneconomics2021 The costs to transport coal anywhere are enormous on a per-kilowatt-hour basis. The government would be better off having ships converted to natural gas tankers and transporting LNG from America to the EU, then using the profit from that to buy its own gas.

[@InnuendoXP]

"missed" - sold out for party donors more-like.

[@oktfg]

It was actually Tony Benn who gave in to Norway defining the Norwegian continental shelf. The joke in Norway is GB gifted the great Christmas present in history to Norway. So no crooked sell out, just plain laziness and stupidity by socialists who didn’t understand or care for profit.

[@bigbadlara5304]

Your pronunciation of Groningen is quite good. Only the first g you are pronouncing wrong 👍

[@jesusguerrero1086]

great content as always big long time fan!, it'd be interesting if you could do a video on the MIR space station keeping in line with your video on the Soviet Economy and Roscosmos

[@mickeydodds1]

You forget to mention that Norway has only 5 million people to look after. The UK has nearly 70 million.

[@476megaman]

14:30 Why decommission the platforms? What hard could they cause once no longer in use? Companies could sell them to people who want to live on oil platforms.

[@oktfg]

Wells don’t go completely dry, just uneconomic to operate. Need to decommission to prevent an uncapped well polluting the sea, which would be hugely expensive to clean up

[@chinguunerdenebadrakh7022]

I don't think the size of people who want to live on oil platforms (AND can afford to do so) reaches the size of 470 platforms. If those people do purchase the platforms, they should also get the legal obligation to bear the costs of decommissioning them once they "move out" or it's judged to not be safe.

[@Nick3DvB]

Maybe not: kzbin.info/www/bejne/eWi3c6COe8Z3pKs

[@asimkhan-fd6ti]

Could you desribe in future video how you create these fantastic information youtubes ie research script stock footage dubbing voice ..software used etc

[@DavidvanDeijk]

pronunciation of "groningen" is on point.

[@nomadhgnis9425]

When will you cover guyana?

[@gardnep]

Wasn’t uk still offering oil and gas fields for tender off northers Scotland in the last couple of years?

[@JonMartinYXD]

Here in Alberta we are dealing with the problem of decommissioning wells by giving oil companies tax breaks to do what they are already legally obligated to do. Our current government isn't so much a political party as it is a cabal of energy company lobbyists.

[@havencat9337]

This is sad, look at ARM.... its now listing on NewYork instead of here in London... another loss for UK

[@kebabsaurusrex1601]

As usual, short sighted UK politicians gave away state assets for peanuts (and yes I am a UK citizen).

[@irg1]

Between a failure to use state(or part state-owned) oil companies to maintain indigenous skill capacity or enable a better-managed green transition and the oil & privatisation revenues of the period being poorly managed(used for welfare payments and tax breaks, rather than sovereign wealth fund or long-term investment), the UK lost out an awful lot from what could have been an enormous economic opportunity.

[@PFAlt]

Neoliberalism in a nutshell.

[@SimonTmte]

Remaining extractable resources in petroleum deposits on the Norwegian continental shelf is estimated to be approx 48% of the total apparently, "now the oil and gas is almost all gone", sounds a bit too dire

[@paulhawkins6415]

I recentl read that BP hed abandoned trying to gat a licence to search for oil and gas north of scotland as the british government would not even talk to them.

[@my0wn0p1n10n]

Wondering if this will mention Dutch Disease 🍿

[@Erik-gg2vb]

The decommissioned Rigs off Southern Ca. will be required to removed down far enough that they are not a navigation or fishnet problems. I scuba dive some of the ones they let you and they are full of life.

[@tinspin]

The legacy is ZX Spectrum and ARM. Let's see how ARM evolves with Risc-V joining the fray.

[@albal156]

Yeah but we don't own it. This is one reason why hate free marketeers. They don't understand that the state owning a monopoly service that underpins a massive industry is of massive benefit to your country. Should never have been sold and Softbank doesn't even want it either now. With that said RISC-V is challenging ARM regardless so idk how uncertain ARMs future is.

[@roanbrand7358]

Treat

[@DemPilafian]

*_"Not the first time in history that the UK failed to draw a proper border"_* 3:34 🤣😭🤣😭🤣😭 (Awesome informative video as always. The mix of imperial and metric units is a little distracting though. Even as an American, I'd rather hear all metric than a jumble of two systems).

[@kimmogensen4888]

Denmark have just invested in it’s biggest North Sea gas field to restart the coming months after years of work to make the rig’s higher, the sea bead has sunken because of the oile and gas extraction, if British politicians want to continue the production they probably can, but they are even worse than the Danish ones it seems, not at the % of green energy but random idiotic decisions like not having storage tanks for natural gas, and nuclear energy failure 🤷‍♂️ and not recognize the failure and getting the successful French products instead, UK not having a strong nuclear energy sector 🤷‍♂️ even if it was French make no sense to me. They don’t have to do everything the hardest why possible.

[@albal156]

100% agree. We always have become too reliant on one thing e.g. Coal up until the 1980s, natural gas right now, (maybe wind in the future) and assume the market will sort things out and that we don't need assets owned by the state such as gas storage, natural monopoly utilities and that we need some diversification. State and markets should work together to face the common threat of climate change recession and depression and poverty in general. More salient now than ever.

[@artmcteagle]

The Norwegian governments were also very farsighted in establishing a sovereign wealth fund with some of the profits of their new found wealth. This fund will continue to benefit all Norwegians long after the gas and oil are gone.

[@OasisTypeZaku]

It sounds like the UK is as oil independent as Texas is. Cold and nasty part of the world though, and I can imagine how rugged the equipment has to be to take that kind of beating.

[@frodej6640]

An oil well is a pocket under the ground with high pressure within it. People are talking about "pumping oil", but this is very wrong thinking. It is the pressure in the ground that make the oil come up. When you pop a balloon, first you get a high air flow, but then quickly the flow becomes weak. Same thing in an oil well. BP is a parasitic company. They drill, extract like 30% from the well, and plug it. Because that gives highest margin and profit to the owners. Once a well is plugged it will never be reopened because drilling is so freekin expensive. You need the first 30% in order to make the entire operation viable. BP is a company that have so many wells that they do not care, and short term thinking is default behaviour. One thing that you can criticise Margaret Thatcher for is exactly this stupid thinking, and she believed the market made the best decision. Norwegian oil recovery rate is often in 60% and sometimes as high as 70%. The parasitic behaviour of the british and american producers was early squashed on the norwegian side, and many incentives was made to make the most out of the industry. Big companies like BP, that is publicly traded, in my view isn't always as capitalistic as we like it to believe. Neither is the state for that matter. Humans are short thinking and easily corrupted. What Maggie did wrong was to not check if the market indeed was as capitalistic as she proclaimed.

[@themanologue2791]

Excellent video though I suspect the missed opportunity was less building a better gas/oil biz, rather not investing the windfall into a Sovereign Fund that could have supported the UK for generations to come

[@johnsmith-cw3wo]

why do like Norway when you can fill the pockets of big corporations and support billionaires for generations to come...

[@anthonyxuereb792]

Isn't there a Dutch interest in Shell?

[@congchuatocmay4837]

The UK, it would give you a headache just thinking about it. I'll tell you one thing just bullying and castiagating people within their own society is not a solution to anything.

[@zachmiller9175]

What's next on the Asia channel? Argentina?

[@Svensk7119]

What do you mean "balance of payments" crisis?

[@CalgarGTX]

Norway also had the brains of using a lot of that oil money to jumpstart EV adoption, charging infrastructure, and renewable generation and storage of all sorts. Meaning they built themselves an escape plan at least. UK is finally starting to move on that but are way behind (along with everybody else)

[@bakkan84]

Just to put it to perspective so people dont think everything is all glitter and rainbows. norway cant maintain their infrastructure, just on roads the lack of maintanance is many billions of NOK and growing each year.Worlds most expencive car prices. Tax on tax. Roads built are toll roads, healthcare in decline, growing number of poor (EU's numbers) bigger and bigger gap between rich and poor, and a staggering amount of suecides. Norway gets richer, but many Norwegians Will never experience that. On the plus side, they do give alot of Oil money to aid and disaster struck countrys.

[@JoeOvercoat]

3:43 burn!

[@janeblogs324]

Ah Britain, my favorite Asian country

[@causewaykayak]

Did you never consider the effects of unrestrained immigration on many british towns. My Glaswegian associate describes his home town as "The Curry Capital of Europe" - wrong of course, Brixton is.

[@irg1]

@@causewaykayak Lies! It is of course Birmingham. :)

[@causewaykayak]

@@irg1 OK. Title conceded 🍲 😋

[@waleed8530]

@@causewaykayak oh Curry, the national dish of the little island.

[@causewaykayak]

@@waleed8530 So true. 👍🏼😋

[@rchatte100]

Norway has a far smaller population & far more oil & gas. So not really a fair comparison.

[@danosdotnl]

Hey! NL in 5 Years! @2:42

[@mng5757]

Another quixotic aspect of this is that the oil Britain would have had access to has some of the lowest carbon emissions per barrel in the world compared to currently imported barrels.

[@ervie60]

Comparing the UK's and Norwegian electric power generation is comparing apples to pears. Norway gets its power these dyas for 90% !!!!! form hydro power generation. Never the high demand for importing oil to generate electricity. This never put them in the vulnerable currency position as the UK and bought time to manage their newly found resources better.

[@TheManLab7]

If you can operate and work there. Then you can work ANYWHERE.

[@chrissheppard8123]

It is not true that the oil and gas in the north sea is almost gone i know some one who works for a major oil company in the UK HE SAYS THERE IS PLENTY STILL THERE, in my view this should be for the UK only .

[@q01q]

8:19 if you are looking for the thumbnail image

[@sblinder1978]

On the Groningen Just can't wait to get on the Groningen The life I love is making natgas with my friends And I can't wait to get on the Groningen -Oillie Nelson

[@mickeydodds1]

The 'median line' is the only fair and judicious way to divvy up the North Sea - the British should be praised for implementing it.

[@John_Smith_86]

Resume @ 4:32

[@H0kram]

3:15 you mean a missed opportunity to scam Norway, not a missed opportunity to be fair, since a 50/50 split is a lot more fair in the subjective matter that borders are anyway. I wouldn't blame any nation for acting a bit fair, for once.

[@gagamba9198]

Though you mentioned Britain had two major oil companies, you failed to mention one of them, BP, was majority state-owned. Britain in the early 1970s had what Norway wished for. BP was 51% owned by the state and had assets around the world, though many more of them were nationalised by the host governments since the 1950s. Being a multinational, it had acquired a variety of companies and technologies from across the globe over the years. As a company that owes a return to the shareholders, i.e. the state 51% and private 49%, it was obliged to select suppliers based on cost and not fanciful dreams of rebuilding Britain. If it's cheaper to obtain platforms from manufacturers in countries X, Y, and Z instead of creating such manufacturers in Britain, then it is the managers' duty to do so. Keep in mind many state-funded projects have been nothing but money pits, not only losing the revenue earned from the profitable side but also adding to the losses by diverting tax revenue to save the project and avoid political embarrassment. British Leyland went through billions of the taxpayers' money. Could the British Government have restricted participation to BP? Yes. Could it have imposed local investment covenants? Yes. And then trade partners could have retaliated by forbidding BP's participation in projects in their territories. This is the nature of things. In the 1960s, Norway was a minnow. A strong minnow, but a minnow nonetheless. Mining, fisheries, merchant marine, etc. Norway relied on foreign experts to conduct the geologic surveys, provide the platforms, perform the drilling, etc typically under 50:50 share of revenue. This placed the financial risk on the oil companies. Having a small population and a lot of oil, the people decided not to invest in national aggrandisement projects. A lot of revenue did not go to fund gov't departments and further projects but eventually was invested across the world - a very diversified portfolio. From mid 1970s to mid 2010s both countries produced a similar amount of oil and gas. Norway earned more revenue per barrel equivalent based on timing and a lower cost of production (larger, more productive oil fields). We only understand good timing and bad from the viewpoint of hindsight. Had the market shifted, had much more oil been brought to market by others, had demand dropped significantly, etc are known _after the fact_ . Had timing not gone in Norway's favour we'd see you make a video about how Norway missed the boat - this is the flaw of hindsight analysis. Analysts can forecast, but they are not soothsayers. Norway decided to defer receipt of the revenues by creating a sovereign wealth fund, which is not risk-free because investments wax and wane in value. Britain decided to spend the revenue on government projects. This has it risks as well because government programmes tend to live on and have recurring costs. BP began to privatise further in 1979 with the sale of 5% of its shares. More shares would be sold later. Norway began privatising Statoil in 2001 but retains 67% of shares.

[@porroapp]

Gonna have to start selling opium again...

[@rockattack]

Shell being British is a little bit of a stretch

[@frodej6640]

Look on a map and see where norway is, and how freekin big/long it is. What if soviet/russia had control over norway? How would that affect usa/uk? I think norway for a long time has been able to make good deals for itself for the value placed on who get to have influence over norway. This is greatly overlook by many, even todays norwegian politicians. Even though norway is a ridiculous country in many ways, having a military expedition towards norway is very costly which the hitler germany proved. Hitler had 300.000 troops in norway, and still had problems. What I try to say is that things are more complicated than you think, and given what the british knew, there was never anything to gain by dictating the borders towards norway.

[@yourpalharvey]

We cannot underestimate hehehe