Future oil prices

C Hegarty (Letters, 30 October) criticises the Centre for Public Policy for Regions (CPPR) for not using a range of oil price forecasts in our report from earlier this week, but instead using only the Office for Budget Responsibilty’s (OBR) forecasts.

In fact, CPPR used a variety of forecasts including those by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Scottish Government, as well as illustrating the extent of this range, which included projections by the Norwegian government, and why it comes about.

With regards to OBR’s forecasts, it is worth reiterating that it has consistently overestimated North Sea production and revenues in recent years. Indeed, the most recent North Sea revenues outturn for 2012-13 was below all five of the Scottish Government scenarios from earlier this year, as well as OBR’s forecast.

(Prof) John McLaren

(Prof) Jo Armstrong

(Prof) Ken Gibb

Centre for Public Policy for Regions

University of Glasgow

Related topics: