Scottish minister reiterates confidence in oil, gas sector

Scottish Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Tourism Fergus Ewing on Monday reiterated his confidence in the oil and gas sector in the future. "Oil and gas is the largest industrial sector in Scotland, it supports employment for around 200,000 people across Scotland and it accounted for more than a quarter of the British government's corporation tax receipts in 2011-2012," Ewing was quoted as saying in a press release. "Oil and gas will remain an enormous economic resource for decades to come with the remaining oil and gas reserves having a potential wholesale value of up to 1.5 trillion pounds (2.33 trillion U.S. dollars). This implies that, by value, more than half of the oil and gas reserves in the North Sea could yet be extracted," he added. The Scottish government helped implement a range of measures to support the industry with an industry-led oil and gas strategy celebrating its one-year anniversary this week, according to Ewing. Earlier in the day, British Secretary Of State for Energy and Climate Change Edward Davey announced the launch of an independent review to look at the oil and gas sector. Oil and gas revenue is at the heart of the debate on Scotland's 2014 independence referendum, as the Scottish National Party government claimed that Scots would each be 500 pounds richer a year in an independent Scotland. But the British coalition government warned that it would be one pound a year worse off for each of the Scots due to declining North Sea oil revenues.