Kezia Dugdale wants to see as much as £100m invested in retaining capacity for ageing oil fields.
That would be at least until the oil price rises to a level at which they return to financially viability.
Ms Dugdale’s spokesman said she had backing from Jeremy Corbyn’s team.
In an unusual move, the Scottish Labour leader is setting out a policy that is effectively a spending commitment for her Labour Party colleagues at Westminster.
The idea is a response to concerns in the oil and gas industry that low prices could mean pipelines and hub facilities within clusters of fields could be closed down.
As Sir Ian Wood spelled out in his report for the UK government on “maximising economic recovery” of oil and gas reserves, that could lead to remaining reserves being cut off from essential routes to market, and no longer viable for development.
Strategic importance
Kezia Dugdale’s initiative comes ahead of the Budget at Westminster, for which the chancellor, George Osborne, is under pressure from the Scottish government and the offshore industry to cut taxes further, and to provide incentives for exploratory drilling.
Ms Dugdale is proposing that the government should set up a public company called the UK Oil Investment Limited (UK Oil)
[“Source-bbc”]
