Wednesday, August 23 2006 14:46 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: Energy companies in Scotland have identified several opportunities in India and China where economic growth is increasingly dependent on sustainable sources of energy.

After a three-week trip, which involved meetings in Beijing in China, and Mumbai, Ahmedabad and New Delhi in India, energy head Brain Nixon of Scottish Enterprise, said on return, "I think the most encouraging thing is that Scotland is seen, not just in oil and gas but also in renewable energies and coal and gas power generation, as a genuine source of technology, innovation and experience."

"We found we were able to get into detailed discussions very quickly. We didn't have to spend significant amounts of time establishing our credentials. We started from an accepted position that Scotland is recognised as a major source of energy talent and energy expertise," he said.

He said technology in the North Sea had developed rapidly over the last 20 years in a number of areas in which he found recurring interest

These included seismic interpretation and analysis in which it was recognised that technology, capability and expertise had grown faster in Scotland than in China and India.

"Exploration in both countries is becoming a lot more difficult," he told The Herald, Glasgow.

"It is the same kind of thing as we are experiencing here. In the early days you would open a few holes and get hundreds of millions of barrels, but over time that becomes more difficult," he said.

"Both countries are actively progressing into deeper waters and that is relatively new and there is a very clear recognition that in the deep water and sub-sea arena Scotland has really significant strengths to offer. The other recurring theme is marginal field development," he said.

In China and India, the British and Scottish capability to complete satellite developments and access smaller reservoirs by tying them into existing infrastructure to make uneconomic discoveries viable was well known.

"That is a very hot topic. In education, training and competency assurance we have come back with a number of live inquiries from the state oil companies and recently privatised oil companies for graduate development programmes, particularly allied to oil and gas," he said.

He said both countries were looking to explore out with their own licence areas and were pursuing production opportunities in international markets.

"They clearly have increasing oil and gas demand needs and part of that they can buy on the open market, but if they can invest and develop it themselves they see that as a way forward," he said.

"However there is a real recognition that the internationalisation of their engineering and management teams is something which needs to be developed over time, so there is significant interest in the Scottish universities and potential Scottish industry partners in devising management and leadership development programmes for their people - out of country," he said.

He said there were a significant number of engineering graduates coming out of India and China, the majority of them fluent English speakers, who could help alleviate skills shortages in other oil provinces.

"There are also a lot of Indian and Chinese students currently studying in Scotland, so there is the opportunity for companies to tie-up with recent graduates to do one or two years of company training with them and then you have really good people to put back into their countries," he said.