Bright outlook for Scotland’s energy sector
In the latest edition of The Scotsman’s Deals podcast, focusing on energy, Callum Gray, corporate finance partner at business services group AAB, and Martin Ewan, corporate partner at Brodies LLP, shared their views on the sector.
Gray said he has witnessed more investors putting money into oil and gas in recent months. “We’ve had a noticeable amount of clients and contacts looking at the full picture and recognising the need to support a wider portfolio of energy sources,” said Gray. “Some energy sources are at the mercy of mother nature and we need to be able to meet demand in an efficient and effective way.”
Ewan said that views have changed since the time of Cop26 in Glasgow in November 2021, when some investors were reluctant to be associated with oil and gas. “Some private equity funds were backing away from oil and gas entirely,” he explained. “The ESG filter was tightening and there were more regulatory obstacles. We’ve moved on from that quite bleak picture for oil and gas and there has been a big uptick in investment in the last 18 months.”
Looking ahead, Ewan said: “Our outlook for the year is really positive. At its core, innovating and our engineering skill-set underpins the oil and gas industry in Scotland and the energy industry more broadly.
“As I’ve said before, private equity was staying away from oil and gas, but now it’s back, certainly when it comes to specialist funds. Technology and energy are booming and if you look at the venn diagram of where they overlap there is going to be an absolute hotspot of activity.”
Gray added: “As a sector we’re in a better position after the challenges we’ve had over the last couple of years - both as firms and individuals. We’ve definitely had to become more creative in terms of getting deals agreed which can only be a good thing.”
Find out more at https://brodies.com/ and https://aab.uk/