The UK and Scottish governments have been urged to support two major renewable energy projects to “help protect and grow jobs in Scotland”.
The call comes as part of a new report which revealed that companies in the Scottish energy industry think that almost half (47%) of their operations will be outside of oil and gas within just eight years, by 2030.
The paper, produced by Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, alongside KPMG and Energy Transition Zone (ETZ) , demonstrates that the number of companies which expect to be involved in carbon capture and storage activities has fallen from 45% to 23%.
The findings suggests that the UK will require five carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in order to achieve its climate targets.
It called on the UK Government to approve the CCS scheme at St Fergus, which was overlooked in favour of two English schemes last year, despite Scotland’s "significant supply chain and infrastructure advantages".
The report also suggests that First Minister Nicola Sturgeon could fulfil her ambition of transforming the North East into the ‘net zero capital of Europe’ by delivering, alongside Westminster, green freeport status for the region.
The research also found that sector confidence has now rebounded from the lows of the pandemic, with 84% of companies in the sector believing their revenues will rise in the year ahead, up from 35% in 2020.
A further seven out of ten companies (71%) think they will grow core staff headcount over the next three years, up from 52% in 2021.
The report also called for fiscal stability for the sector to allow firms to invest, reporting that only 28% said that they believed financial support for the energy transition was visible.
It also proposed the creation of a new Scottish offshore wind directorate to inject pace into the delivery of ScotWind through what is, at present, "a complex, multi-agency delivery route".
Russell Borthwick, chief executive at Aberdeen and Grampian Chamber of Commerce, said: “We need the UK and Scottish governments to step-up and back the transformational schemes that would shift the dial on our move to a lower carbon future.
“Westminster needs to accelerate carbon capture at the scale this country will need to meet its carbon reduction targets.”
Maggie McGinlay, chief executive at ETZ, said: “The Scottish and UK governments have set out a wide range of welcome measures designed to support accelerated diversification toward new energies, but there is still some uncertainty as to how this support can be accessed, so this report is valuable in highlighting the need for greater clarity of vision and purpose from our policymakers in this regard.”
Separately, Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) said that the oil and gas industry - much of which is based in Aberdeen - will pay £7.8bn in taxes this year, which is equivalent to 1% of the nation's entire tax revenue.
The industry body argued that the UK's offshore operators pay a tax rate of 40% - the highest of any industry - making the Exchequer among the biggest beneficiaries already.
Over the last 50 years, the industry has paid more than £375bn in production taxes.
This tax contribution comes on top of research conducted by OEUK in 2021, which found that the oil and gas industry contributes £18.2bn gross value added (GVA) to the economy of North East Scotland, while providing jobs for 64,000 people across the region.
Across the whole of Scotland, the sector creates a total of 71,500 jobs and generates £19.4bn in GVA for Scotland – the equivalent to around 12% of Scotland’s gross domestic product.
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