Ex-climate minister with jobs at 3 oil firms
And he also owns an energy guzzling Scottish castle
A FORMER climate minister who has plugged green schemes and owns a Scottish castle has three jobs with oil companies.
Ex-Tory MP Charles Hendry has joined the boards of Independent Oil and Gas and its major stakeholder London Oil and Gas, on top of his role as an adviser to international oil giant Vitol.
London Oil and Gas is trying to buy producing assets in North America, the Caspian Sea and west Africa, while Independent has assets in the North Sea and is looking to expand.
Hendry, 57, owns a 20-bedroom castle in Scotland, and is advising the Government for an international conference on reducing carbon dioxide emissions and boosting green energy.
In his time as a minister he once boasted that he wanted the Government to be the ‘greenest ever’.
Yesterday, he said: ‘I am very excited about the potential of the North Sea and I think it is in the national interest for the country to get as much oil and gas from the North Sea as we can. I am a great believer in diversity of energy.’
The former Wealden MP was energy and climate change minister between 2010 and 2012, when he backed a £120m biomass plant in Yorkshire and signed a deal to bring power from Icelandic volcanoes to Britain via undersea cables.
Since leaving office he has taken lucrative roles in the energy sector, including as the director of Atlantic Superconnection, the firm trying to build the undersea cable from Iceland.
He also became chairman of Forewind, a consortium of British and Norwegian energy firms building an offshore wind farm off Yorkshire, having overseen a major energy partnership between the UK and Norway.
He has since quit both posts for the oil companies. London Oil and Gas says it is working hard to offset emissions. It adds, on its website: ‘We are constantly look- ing for new, innovative ideas designed to mitigate the effect of carbon emissions and improve the lives of those affected.’
IOG chief executive Mark Routh said this week: ‘Charles joins the company at an exciting stage of our development and his deep knowledge and experience of the sector will be invaluable.’
It comes as the Government is consulting on giving tax breaks to buyers of ageing assets in the North Sea, in the hopes of keeping the basin going for longer.
In 2011 Hendry bought Blair Castle in Ayrshire, thought to be worth around £2.5m. It has three storeys, 20 bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, an outdoor pool and is set in 260 acres of countryside.
London Oil and Gas declined to disclose Hendry’s salary as a director while his salary as a non- executive director of IOG is expected in the company’s annual report. Another non- executive director earned £28,000 last year.
Hendry has several other business interests, including renting out the Blair Estate he bought with wife Sallie. It is understood he is advising the Government for an Expo in Kazakhstan this summer when more than 100 nations will discuss cutting carbon emissions.