Island oil has no future

Wed, 14 Nov 2012

The Isle of Man doesn’t have sufficient oil off its west coast to significantly cash in.

That’s according to the Economic Development Minister who was responding to a question in the House of Keys yesterday.

John Shimmin said previous ventures had been made in oil drilling over the past 20 years but none were deemed successful.

He pointed to companies such as Elf, Marathon and BP who abandoned their efforts in the 1990s because of disappointing results.

Mr Shimmin said he wouldn’t rule our oil efforts in the future, but admitted the original tests carried out by Elf 15 years ago weren’t encouraging.