"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."

Published: 26th June 2013 | Issue 25

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This delightfully subtle quote is one of my favourites, and was uttered by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a US politician who came from humble beginnings, and rose to become the Senator from New York, holding some extraordinary posts – and opinions - along the way.

During my youth, Moynihan was an occasional face on TV as part of the US administration, and caused considerable controversy with some of his comments and policies, and on at least one occasion striking an opponent in the Senate! Even the articulate and eloquent can eventually resort to the ultimate negotiation tactic it seems. He did however leave the world with his memorable quote.

Too often these days’ folk confuse their opinions with facts, and alarmingly assert the former is the latter despite the evidence, or indeed the lack of it.

Working as I have with, or in, trade associations for 25 years, I confess the co-operative and collaborative approach we encourage does on occasion give a platform for the fact-averse, but in my experience, the facts do eventually come out.

As a youngster my senior school Science project was ‘Oil & Gas.’ My Science teacher at the time was, as befitted his status, routinely clothed in a jacket with leather elbow-patches and a CND badge, shod in Hush Puppies, had hair more conducive to a folk festival and a beard birds could nest in! I suspect his politics were a little left of Karl Marx. I remember him well for forcing a change in my final paper to say that fossil fuels would ‘very quickly run out.’ I remember being rather miffed as my research suggested that they were of course a finite resource, and would run out eventually, but not in my lifetime.

It is with some very personal satisfaction therefore that I have listened to the very encouraging comments from economists like Dr Michael Economides, and more recently the speakers at the NOF Conference (see page 11), who declare that the world has many, many decades of reserves left - possibly even hundreds of years. Yes, the ingenuity of man is needed to extract these resources, and new methods are needed for the HPHT reserves, shale gas, fire ice and so forth. Nevertheless Oil & Gas is seeing resurgence due to a combination of demand, sensible tax breaks and most importantly, technology. I

t is in the technology area that BVAA members are so well equipped – and that IS a fact!

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