ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book analyses the economic policy of the government and discusses alternative ways of managing the economy in order to get maximum benefit from oil and gas wealth. It deals with oil and gas simply as natural resources. The book examines the effect of oil and gas development upon the industrial sector, both in the country and in certain others. It concerns macroeconomic effects and policies. The discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea and the rest of the continental shelf were greeted as a stroke of wonderfully good luck for the country. It was widely expected that the development of these finds would bring in a period of prosperity for the British economy. Oil production began in 1976 and built up to 89.4 million tonnes a year by 1981, considerably exceeding home consumption.
