<\/p>\n
The Jackdaw field has drawn protests from activists (pic: DB Media Services)<\/p>\n
John Swinney appears to have softened his position on drilling in the North Sea after conceding the impact of the Iran War on the UK\u2019s energy security.<\/p>\n
The First Minister told a pre-election hustings event that the geopolitical situation raised \u201cgrave issues\u201d for Britain and helped make the case for exploiting the Jackdaw gas and Rosebank oil and gasfields.<\/p>\n
Both are currently under review after activists won a court ruling that a previous permission had failed to pass environmental tests.<\/p>\n
Mr Swinney told the Holyrood Sources podcast that he still favoured climate compatibility assessments before drilling was allowed to go-ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat assessment on climate compatibility has to be undertaken,\u201d said Mr Swinney. \u201cI think the thing that\u2019s changed is the geopolitical situation that is surrounding us just now, and the huge volatility that we\u2019re now dealing with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t give you a definitive answer about Jackdaw and Rosebank because the climate compatibility assessment has got to be undertaken.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I\u2019m saying is that I think we\u2019ve got to look at the geopolitical situation that we now face and recognise that we\u2019re experiencing much greater risk to our energy security as a consequence of what\u2019s happening there.\u201d<\/p>\n
A change of tack on oil and gas would represent a significant shift in SNP policy under Mr Swinney\u2019s predecessors Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf who were both hostile to more drilling.<\/p>\n
Mr Swinney has already accepted that oil gas will remain part of the energy mix for some time to come but has generally been seen to follow the line of a \u201cpresumption against new drilling\u201d.<\/p>\n
He has also accepted that oil and gas \u201cis declining too fast\u201d and that jobs in renewables are not being created quickly enough to replace them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we\u2019ve got to take that into account in the decisions that we make,\u201d he said, and agreed that imports of oil and gas were \u201cmore climate damaging\u201d than that produced in the UK.<\/p>\n
\t #Swinney #softens #position #oil #gas #drilling #Daily #Business<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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