“They don’t let anybody drill,” he said. “There are windmills all over the place and they are losers.”
But interviews with engineers, oil producers and activists suggest the decline of oil and gas is now terminal in the UK. For all the political debate, the sector accounts for only about 1% of the economy today, according to David Owen, chief economist at Saltmarsh Economics. Even if drilling picked up pace, few believe the UK could ever compete again on oil and gas. Its stretch of the North Sea is 90% depleted for commercial resources, according to Wood Mackenzie, and rivals have surged ahead.
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