Wages slashed as oil crisis deepens

THE Wood Group has revealed plans to cut contractors’ salaries by 10 per cent as well as impose a pay freeze on staff.

The energy giant insisted the measures were necessary to ensure its longterm survival a mi d gr o wi n g turmoil in the industry.

It blamed its decision on plummeting North Sea revenues as well as the drastic drop in global oil prices.

Yesterday Dave Stewart, UK managing director, said: ‘These measures have not been taken lightly, but we believe they are required in light of the cost and efficiency challenges affecting the UK North Sea oil and gas sector, exacerbated by the fall in oil prices.’

The announcement came as the SNP faced calls for an inquiry after the global price of oil fell yet again, this time to almost half its referendum boasts.

It will be viewed as a major embarrassment for the Scottish Government, which predicted $113 (£72) a barrel while trying to sell independence to voters. That figure now seems a distant dream.

When the price fell to $82 (£52), the Scotland Office calculated that if the country had been independent this year it would have been left with a £5billion black hole.

But it has now dipped below $59 (£38), denting confidence in the industry amid fears of huge jobs cuts in the New Year.

During the referendum campaign, Sir Ian Wood, the self-made oil billionaire, warned the SNP had been guilty of ‘distortions and inaccuracies’ in interpreting his Wood Group research.

He said Alex Salmond had overestimated how much tax he would get back by almost £3billion a year.

Meanwhile Professor Ronald MacDonald, economist at Glasgow University, said the falling oil price ‘calls into considerable question and doubt the many statements made by the SNP on oil revenues in the run up to the referendum vote’.

He called for an independent organisa- tion to be set up to forecast oil prices and their impact on public spending.

Jackie Baillie, Scottish Labour finance spokesman, said: ‘The SNP Scottish Government’s wildly inaccurate figures raise serious questions about whether we can trust what they are telling us.’

A spokesman for Finance Secretary John Swinney said: ‘At time of the Scottish Government’s publication in March last year, the $113 price assumption was the average price over the previous two years – and the UK Government’s own Energy Department was forecasting oil prices to reach $134 [£86] a barrel in 2018.’

A RECORD number of women in work and rising employment north and south of the Border are further evidence of UK economic recovery.

New figures show 74 per cent of Scots have jobs – higher than the UK’s 73 per cent average – up 52,000 on last year.

A record 68.1 per cent of women are in work south of the Border. In Scotland the figure is even higher, at 71.4 per cent, also an all-time high. Petrol could drop to 99p a litre – Page 17