Cluff calls for North Sea windfarm subsidy shift

ENERGY: Claim that money could be better spent on oil and gas

Offshore oil and gas veteran Algy Cluff has called for proposed subsidies for new windfarms in the North Sea to be transferred in the post-Brexit environment to benefit the UK economy.

Many of the windfarms are foreignowned and he said they were sterilising access to gas which could be harvested by UK energy companies.

Mr Cluff, whose plans for underground coal gasification developments in the Firth of Forth have been blocked by a Scottish Government moratorium, was commenting on his company’s interim results for the six months to June.

Cluff Natural Resources (CNR) listed as highlights some potentially significant increased resources with its Southern North Sea gas prospects.

Its cash balance of £955,000, was down from £1.94 million a year earlier and its loss was 11% down at £662,473.

Mr Cluff said the UK leaving the EU had resulted in “a completely new slate of ministers in a new ministry led by a prime minister who clearly has new ideas” about energy policy.

“The North Sea, in our judgment, still contains much undiscovered oil and gas, but it is evolving into a secondary phase which will rely on the independent or smaller companies to conduct exploration, rather than the majors,” he said.

He hoped new Business and Energy Secretary, Greg Clark, will recognise this and offer assistance.

“That could be achieved simply by the removal of, or even reduction in, proposed subsidies amounting to billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money for new offshore windfarms, many of which are foreign owned and in some cases sterilising access to gas from geology in the Southern North Sea.”