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INTERNATIONAL GROWTH & DIVERSIFICATION
By David Rennie, Head of Global Trade - Energy, Scottish Development International. Contact: David.m.rennie@scotent.co.uk
REPOSITIONING FOR GROWTH
emissions and reach net-zero while ensuring that we continue to provide energy and jobs to people around the globe while also developing new technologies and solutions to meet the challenges and opportunities of the future.
David Rennie
It is an obvious fact but one which is always worth repeating that Scotland’s Energy sector is one of our true international success stories over the decades. For example, international activity accounts for around half of all supply chain sales from the Scottish Energy sector. And while oil and gas has been at the heart of that success story, it is an energy story that is changing, reflecting the global drive to reduce
www.ogv.energy I September 2021
Scotland is well placed to play an important role in that future. An increasing number of Scottish companies who may have described themselves previously as oil and gas companies would now describe themselves as energy companies. And the cross-sectoral opportunities in areas such as offshore wind, hydrogen, and carbon capture to name just a few will have significant opportunities for our supply chain. Many of the companies we work with have already been busy winning business in these emerging sectors. Scottish Development International is the Trade and Inward Investment agency of the Scottish Government. Over the years we have assisted hundreds of companies to win business overseas, either through helping them to attend missions and exhibitions, providing market intelligence, making connections, or indeed getting advice from our Globalscots network. Indeed, some of you reading this article will (hopefully!) will have benefited from such support. With people based both in Scotland and overseas locations in a number of our key
markets, from China to Mexico and numerous points in-between, we provide support and advice to hundreds of companies each year. In February this year, the Scottish Government through its Trade Vision document announced its intention to cease government support for fossil-fuel based activity internationally by the time COP26 takes place later this year. And while there are exemptions to this, such as support for decommissioning for example, this does mean that in SDI we will need to evolve our focus and the type of projects we can support. It is important to state that this policy does not mean we cannot work with ‘oil and gas’ companies – what it does mean is that for companies who operate in both oil and gas and renewables/low carbon markets they would be able to receive our support for the latter, and in limited and defined areas for the former. There are significant market opportunities across the world which offer prospects for our supply chain. So, for example, Offshore Wind provides significant opportunities in a number of locations including the Americas, Asia, and Europe regions. That is just one example, and these are many others. Such markets will grow significantly over the next few decades. So, the overall message is that while our focus is changing in terms of the areas of energy we will focus upon, International remains at the heart of our energy success story but it is one that is going to look very different in the future and much more diverse – but we should be excited by that. If you are interested to see what we can do to help, please contact myself to see what we can do to assist.
