Aberdeen, Scotland, is the “oil capital of the world,” Trump defined after touching down within the nation. He’ll even be visiting Turnberry and assembly with EU President Ursula von der Leyen and British PM Keir Starmer.
President Trump is visiting Scotland this weekend, spending time at two of his golf golf equipment, and attending a ribbon-cutting of a brand new course at one in every of them. He’s additionally scheduled to satisfy European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in Aberdeen.
Aberdeen, often called The Granite Metropolis from the regionally quarried stone utilized in lots of its most interesting buildings, has constructed its economic system on the oil and gasoline business, although it’s now a metropolis in transition.
“They’ve a lot oil there,” President Trump informed a reporter in a latest telephone interview with BBC Information, and the huge oil fields within the close by North Sea have led to Aberdeen being dubbed ‘Europe’s Oil Capital”.
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Provide vessels used within the oil, gasoline and renewable vitality industries are docked on the Aberdeen Harbour, within the North East of Scotland, on April 29, 2022. (Photograph by Andy Buchanan/AFP through Getty Photos / Getty Photos)
When BP struck black gold deep beneath the notoriously tough waters of the North Sea within the early Seventies, it heralded a interval of financial progress for Aberdeen, which till then had been extra well-known as the house of Scotland’s fishing fleet.
The primary oil subject to be tapped was the Forties Discipline, greater than 100 miles offshore. It had an estimated two billion barrels of oil, and by the height of its manufacturing in 1979 was producing half 1,000,000 barrels day by day.
President Donald Trump performs golf at Trump Turnberry golf course on July 26, 2025, in Turnberry, Scotland. U.S. President Donald Trump is visiting his Trump Turnberry golf course, in addition to Trump Worldwide Golf Hyperlinks in Aberdeenshire, throughout a b (Photograph by Christopher Furlong/Getty Photos / Getty Photos)
Over the next a long time, a few of the largest names within the business, together with Shell, Esso, ConocoPhillips, Mobil and Statoil, established drilling or pipeline operations with Aberdeen as their hubs, because the North Sea grew to become dotted with a whole lot of oil rigs, and the business generated an estimated 100,000 jobs.
All through the Eighties and Nineties, the North Sea oil and gasoline business grew to become a significant driver of the U.Ok. economic system, and propelled Britain at one level to change into the world’s fifth-largest oil producer. The success of Aberdeen was a supply of nationwide satisfaction, too.
Provide vessels used within the oil, gasoline and renewable vitality industries are docked by Caledonian Oil’s tank, at Aberdeen Harbour, within the North East of Scotland, on April 29, 2022. (Photograph by ANDY BUCHANAN/AFP through Getty Photos / Getty Photos)
“It was our pals the Individuals who went to the moon and returned with honor,” former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher informed a gathering of petroleum business executives within the mid-Eighties, “however right here in Britain, within the North Sea, the oil business has been to the underside of the deep and has received not solely honor however oil.”
Fashionable-day Aberdeen is a metropolis going by means of generational change: oil and gasoline manufacturing has fallen by 5% yearly for the reason that flip of the millennium, and a whole lot of oil wells have been decommissioned.
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There’s a generally reluctant acknowledgment in Scotland’s northeast that oil and gasoline sources are finite, and the realm is coming to phrases with a inexperienced economic system transition that won’t present new jobs for everybody at the moment working within the petroleum business.
Forward of his go to to Scotland, President Trump known as for extra North Sea drilling and criticized the U.Ok.’s shift to renewable vitality sources.
The Complete Culzean platform is pictured on the North Sea, about 45 miles (70 kilometres) east of Aberdeen, Europe’s self-proclaimed oil capital on Scotland’s northeast coast, on April 8, 2019. (Photograph by Andy Buchanan/AFP through Getty Photos / Getty Photos)
Upon his arrival on Friday, Trump echoed his criticism of renewable vitality. “Cease the windmills. You are ruining your international locations. I actually imply it. It is so unhappy. You fly over, and also you see these windmills in all places, ruining your stunning fields and valleys and killing your birds,”he informed reporters.
This might be music to the ears of oil business executives, with their deep roots within the Aberdeen economic system, and their deep pockets that preserve a pro-oil and gasoline agenda within the headlines. They’ve been lobbying exhausting for the British authorities to drop a 78% tax on their earnings, and pushing for extra drilling licenses.
Nonetheless, extra fossil gas manufacturing can be incompatible with the U.Ok.’s worldwide local weather commitments and a aim to restrict world warming to 1.5°C. The town of Aberdeen additionally has its personal local weather targets, aiming to be net-zero by 2045.
Golfers play at Nigg Bay Golf Membership, overlooking the Port of Aberdeen and the Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm, in Aberdeen, Scotland, July 18, 2022. (Emily Macinnes/Bloomberg through Getty Photos / Getty Photos)
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President Trump’s opposition to renewable vitality tasks in Aberdeen is properly documented. He beforehand fought and misplaced a prolonged court docket battle to dam the development of a wind farm not removed from the shoreline of his golf course.
He claimed that the eleven generators would spoil the view from the hyperlinks, however in 2019 a Scottish court docket dominated towards him and ordered Trump Worldwide Golf Membership Scotland Ltd to pay the authorized payments of the Scottish authorities as a part of the judgment.