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Oil find ‘could influence poll’

Oil find ‘could influence poll’

A leading economist has predicted that a major North Sea oil find in the next eight months could have an impact on the independence campaign.

Professor David Bell, who was raised in Dornoch and educated at Aberdeen University, said he thought it would have an effect in terms of persuading some people that Scotland could afford to go it alone.

But he said any shift in public opinion would be dependent on communication because “messages have difficulty getting down from Aberdeen to the central belt”.

Prof Bell, who works at Stirling University, said the state of the North Sea industry may not have a bearing on how people who work within it vote on September 18, however.

“It is important to distinguish between oil in the North Sea and the North Sea oil industry,” he added.

“Aberdeen gets a huge chunk of its revenue from outside the UK. It is now effectively a world centre of expertise in certain aspects of oil exploration and development and that will insulate it to an extent.

“Oil and gas might not be a factor if people are quite content their livelihoods are assured so it seems to me they will think about other stuff.”

The SNP and unionist parties have clashed over the resources left in the North Sea, but Prof Bell said he was in no doubt that gas reserves were in decline.

“We would not have had the dispute at Grangemouth if it wasn’t the case that there is no longer sufficient North Sea gas feedstock for the chemicals they produce,” he said. “What they actually want to do is build a new terminal so that shale gas from the US can be imported straight into Grangemouth.”

Prof Bell criticised campaigners on both sides of the independence debate over the way they are framing their arguments.

“There is a clear desire on the part of the public and businesses for more information but a lot of the responses from both sides have been technical and not entirely relevant,” he added.