THERE has never been a better time for UK companies to expand overseas
and North Sea service and supply companies aiming to go international
should plan to do half of their business abroad by the year 2000,
Aberdeen industrialist Mr Ian Wood said yesterday.
Mr Wood was addressing the Aberdeen Chamber of Commerce Business
Breakfast Club on the internationalisation of the North Sea oil
industry.
He suggested that by 1996 a minimum of 25% of North companies'
business should be overseas. Four years later, that figure should be
50%.
He said the North Sea oil industry was now in the mature phase with
most of the first generation fields well past peak production. ''The
challenge now is to maintain these fields in viable production for as
long as possible and to develop the many new smaller fields which will
require innovative techniques and a heavy emphasis on cost-effective
practice and efficiency.
''From the UK's point of view we are increasingly competing with many
new prospective areas worldwide but therein, of course, lies the
opportunity for the internationalisation of our supply and service
industry.''
He said the UK firms had to take advantage of opportunities because
their major competitors in the US were still going through major
restructuring and had a much weaker home market.
He suggested there should be a switch in emphasis of the type of
support Government gave to companies seeking to break into international
markets. ''The biggest problem facing companies, particularly small
companies, is the whole minefield of the culture change,'' he said.
''Companies must be prepared for different laws, in some cases lack of
binding contracts, different business practices and ethics, serious
problems with financing contracts and payments and the need for joint
venture partners and agents,'' he added.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article