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So we're in Aberdeen and today we're heading off to energy major Total's new Culzean field in the North Sea. This field, developed at a cost of US$4bn, is expected at its peak to supply 5 per cent of the UK's total gas demand.
Nearly an hour by helicopter from the Scottish coast the brand new Culzean development is a powerful reminder of the North Sea's remaining potential for oil and gas. But environmental groups say developments like this are terrible news for climate change.
Total has built a towering three-platform complex and a floating storage vessel, altogether weighing around 100,000 tonnes, to tap in to one of the biggest gas finds in UK waters in recent decades.
The technical challenges are considerable. It doesn't look it on this beautiful spring day, but the North Sea can be among the most hostile of environments. And getting to the gas means drilling under 90 metres of water and through 5,000 metres of sandstone. The complex has to be able to safely process gas trapped in the rock at more than 900 times atmospheric pressure and 175 degrees centigrade.
North Sea oil and gas production peaked years ago. But Total believes it's investment here will encourage further exploration in the area.
Well, this is one of the most productive basins for oil and gas in the North Sea, and obviously with infrastructure such as Culzean available to tie back to, that reduces cost per barrel and obviously makes exploration prospects more viable going forward.
Claus Vissing-Jorgensen, Culzean project director, says he is sure there are other such fields of this scale yet to be discovered in the North Sea.
For me all the way back in 1992 I was told to never join this dinosaur industry. It's a dying industry, and nothing's really going to happen. There will be no future for you here. And there we go. This is almost... more than 30 years since then. So yeah, there would be more opportunity, I think. And it's always going to be like that. Never believe all these stories. You know?
Yet the oil and gas sector face a bigger potential challenge. Scotland in May declared the country faced a climate emergency, a crisis that burning more fossil fuel can only worsen. The Culzean Project suggests a lot more energy can still be extracted from under the North Sea. The question is whether it would be safer to leave it there.
