Oil price query

I’m rather confused by Professor Paul de Leeuw’s analysis (your report, 16 January) of the oil price dilemma.

He starts by commenting that the collapse in the oil price “is because there is simply more supply of oil than there is demand”. He later concludes that further investment and incentives are required to enable more
exploration.

“If we don’t find oil we can’t produce oil,” he states. If there is already more oil available than we need in the short-term, why the great panic to increase exploration?

In terms of employment, we’ve heard over the past few days that 400 jobs will be lost due to the current situation.

No doubt there will be hundreds more. I note that [energy minister] Fergus Ewing warns our country is facing “the most serious jobs situation in living memory”. He seems to have forgotten about the banking crisis, when thousands of bank jobs were lost throughout Scotland.

Brian Watt

Hunters Tryst

Edinburgh