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Scotland announces new taskforce to support energy sector

Xinhua, January 15, 2015 Adjust font size:

A new Energy Jobs Taskforce will be established to support Scotland's oil and gas sector, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon announced on Wednesday.

The new taskforce, chaired by Scottish Enterprise Chief Executive Lena Wilson, will report to the Scottish Energy Advisory Board and will focus on supporting jobs across the energy sector, but with an initial emphasis on the oil and gas sector.

There will also be a guarantee for Modern Apprentices in Scotland's oil and gas sector to ensure that any faced with redundancy will be offered alternative employment or continued off the job training pending alternative employment, said Sturgeon.

The North Sea has made an enormous contribution to the local Scottish and British economies over the last 40 years, she said, stressing that it is now vital that the British Government maintains the momentum for fiscal and regulatory change in the oil and gas sector to prolong the life of the industry beyond 2050 and maximize economic benefits.

She admitted that the recent drop in the price of crude oil and other challenges facing the industry pose a threat to a number of jobs.

The establishment of the Energy Jobs Taskforce is to make sure that partners are working across the sector both to maintain jobs and to mitigate the potential impact of any losses, and the first meeting of the taskforce is to be held by the end of January, according to Sturgeon.

The energy industry as a whole is crucial to the Scottish Economy with the oil and gas sector alone supporting almost 2,000 Scottish supply chain companies and 225,000 jobs across Scotland, said Lena Wilson. Endit