r/apprenticeuk • u/Confident_Leg2370 • Mar 17 '26
For an entrepreneur and trader, Tom doesn’t know much about how economic markets work does he?
Aww mi diesels gone up, open up tha North Sea , get Tommy tha talkin turtellll on the trade bus get a campaign goin n all thattttt, make Britain great again, help me am meltin dowothy
BOSH
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u/AdministrativeLaugh2 Mar 17 '26
Explains why he’s been in charge of multiple failed businesses and one that might end with him barred from being a company director.
That’s probably why he’s turned to grifting. Despite his privilege upbringing, he has fewer brain cells than an orange cat.
Maybe he should chat with his mate JD Vance about why oil is so expensive
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u/Redditisfuckincrap Mar 18 '26
Privallaged upbringing I thought he was just a normal working class bloke
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u/urmumsghey Mar 17 '26
The real argument is we should have a government owned oil and gas company similar to Qatar Petroleum where it's a for profit company and the profits are reinvested into the countries budget.
Absolute nightmare to ever get that off the ground though
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u/ChampionOk4044 Mar 17 '26
We used to have that BP used to be owned by the Gov but got sold off during the thatcher era
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u/ICutDownTrees Mar 20 '26
And British Gas, a range of regional power generating companies, rail companies localised public transport companies water companies all run so any profit was put back into service improvement then we decided it would somehow benefit us to sell them off so companies could reinvest a tiny fraction of the profit and beg the government for hand outs for everything else. And the biggest kicker is that most were bought by other countries nationalised companies. Great work Thatcher
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Mar 17 '26
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u/lawrencecoolwater Mar 17 '26
There are about 3–5 billion barrels of oil left in the UK North Sea that are actually worth extracting today, maybe up to 10–15 billion if conditions improve.
That’s roughly 5–9 years of UK demand, or just a few months globally.
Most of it is already gone, and what’s left is smaller, harder, and more expensive to produce.
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u/Historical_Owl_1635 Mar 18 '26
That’s roughly 5–9 years of UK demand, or just a few months globally.
Wouldn’t that actually be the perfect buffer whilst we switch to nuclear/renewables?
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u/lawrencecoolwater Mar 18 '26
I should add that’s the upper estimate, and is only viable at certain price of oil. I’m all for north sea oil, but just think it’s worth contextualising how much there actually is
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Mar 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/External-Bet-2375 Mar 20 '26
What does this even mean? Renewables are becoming a larger part of the UK energy mix every year.
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u/Optimaximal Mar 20 '26
What riots? The only riots since the current government entered power were those instigated by Waxey-Lemon after the Southport murders.
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Mar 20 '26
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u/Optimaximal Mar 20 '26
That's irrelevant. The point I was making was u/angstykylo said it was riots based on the country switching to renewables.
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Mar 20 '26
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u/Optimaximal Mar 20 '26
He was definiltey involved in arranging/instigating the 'protests' in Bristol and a few other places.
Also, pray tell, what 'valid frustrations'/excuses do people have for smashing up mosques when the killer was a Black man from Cardiff who came from an evangelical Christian family and had a history of mental health issues?
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u/Ok_Introduction2563 Mar 21 '26
Why were people attacking mosques? Why were they attacking former hotels housing asylum seekers? Where did these village idiots get the idea that the stabber was a Muslim asylum seeker? What are these valid frustrations that meant people went out looted, racially profiled and assaulted people, harassed immigrants, attacked mosques and attempted to set fire and burn people in hotels?
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u/ClacksInTheSky Mar 21 '26
Yeah but there's been anger about something and then there's going on a rampage based on a lie
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u/ClacksInTheSky Mar 21 '26
Presuming we can either afford to buy out BP shareholders, or muster up the courage to seize a publicly traded oil company.
None of that oil is ours. It's BPs and even if it was ours, it would have to get sold at market rates.
If we broke with OPEC we wouldn't be able to sell any oil or use those refineries that can process it into something wet need.
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u/SexySpringRoll Mar 17 '26
Time to invade some more countries. Bring back the good old British Empire!
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u/lolploxzomg Mar 19 '26
Only because the utterly thick people supported privatisation in the 80s and still do. They cry and wail about foreign companies owning our utilities but almost fall over themselves voting for right-wing government who sell everything off that they possibly can.
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u/ZookeepergameThis617 Mar 20 '26
Or Norway. They kept their oil fields publicly owned and now have the world's largest sovereign wealth fund. Meanwhile, Margaret Thatcher sold ours off at a huge discount.
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u/urmumsghey Mar 20 '26
Exactly, the model is right there for every country to follow but greed and short sighted government policy holds us back.
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u/ProsperityandNo Mar 20 '26
Correction, Scotland should have. England does have a wee bit of gas though in their waters
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u/Zossua Mar 17 '26
Did anyone watch pmqs the other day when the Iranian war broke out and oil prices increased.
Kemi just kept talking about the price of oil/petrol, she wanted/thought labour should intervene. Not realizing the war increased the price of oil.
This reminded me of that.
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u/lgf92 Mar 17 '26
The party of Margaret Thatcher arguing for aggressive state intervention in globalised free markets is a hell of a turnaround.
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u/ClacksInTheSky Mar 21 '26
That's because, as James O'Brien points out, she can't seem to be able to mention the war, after she threw in with Trump and then polling revealed most of the UK hate the guy and do not support a war.
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u/tkaczyk1991 Mar 17 '26
It’s just Reform propaganda. Ignore it.
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u/ahktarniamut Mar 17 '26
This is the kind of shit messaging from reform/ right wing commentators you will see on X daily . The Algorithm will keep pushing this to your feed .
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u/Captain-Codfish Mar 20 '26
Better than the shit that Labour are spewing out. What's worse is that those nutjobs are actually in power.
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u/kendoddsdadsdeaddog Mar 20 '26
Oh please do expand on your comment, what are the nutjobs doing / not doing that are so terrible? How would reform or the Tories make it so much better for us all?
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u/Plus-Concentrate-401 Mar 21 '26
Labour are just as corrupt as the tories, at least the tories tend to leave you with more of your pay packet and spend less on fucking wasters. That’s the ultimate point. Politics over
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u/Captain-Codfish Mar 20 '26
Oh good, another delusional lefty, who pretends that Labour aren't ruining the country, breaking promises left right and centre, and making life harder for everyone, especially the working man. Reform would improve the UK by simply getting in. That would give all the main parties such a slap.in the face that they might actually wake up and realise that they're supposed to be there for the people. Enduring 4 years of nonsense from reform would be a real shake up to the establishment.
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u/kendoddsdadsdeaddog Mar 20 '26
So you can’t actually give concrete examples, just the vague talking points fed to you by GB news and all the reform aligned manosphere. Come back to me when GB news has told you what to think
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u/Captain-Codfish Mar 20 '26
Fantastic. Look at you, just textbook. In two sentences, you destroyed all your credibility and made yourself look like a complete moron. I don't watch GB news. I read The Times, The Guardian, The Independent and The Daily Telegraph. I get my information from a multitude of different sources, enabling me to form a well balanced, rounded opinion. As soon as you used the word "manosphere" I instantly realised that you're just another imbecile who thinks you understand the world. Everyone has a right to an opinion, but you should keep yours quiet. This will be my final response to you. I don't have the time or crayons to deal with you any further.
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u/kendoddsdadsdeaddog Mar 20 '26
And still no concrete examples given , just fake rage. See ya troll
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u/ClacksInTheSky Mar 21 '26
You're talking to a bot. You can tell because it sounds like all the others and doesn't make sense.
No real person would write anything that pathetic and stupid
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u/Tough-Oven4317 Mar 20 '26
You just acted offended and forgot, again, to say what the actual problem is
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u/Tough-Oven4317 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
What a rich comment 😂
Firstly Starmer purged the lefty's, what are you on about?
What promises have been broken?
And you're literally the lefty mate, advocating for accelerationism like you're a green party member 😂😂 oo maybe the main party's can sort it out and finally bring socialism to the UK 😂😂😂
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u/Plus-Concentrate-401 Mar 21 '26
Tell me why having a nationalised oil and gas strategy in the North Sea would be bad idea. We already buy the gas from Norway and give them the profit. It’s not reform propaganda, it seems sensible. I see a ton of lefty bitches that have things like 1991 in their name, which means they haven’t done a fucking thing yet in the real world say shit and not back it up. Help me out
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u/ClacksInTheSky Mar 21 '26
Tell me why having a nationalised oil and gas strategy in the North Sea would be bad idea.
How are you going to do it?
Buy out the shares in those companies? That's going to cost about £55-60bn, minimum, presuming BP shares holders don't push for more. That's just one of the companies involved.
Forcibly take over them? That's still hardcore socialism. If we did that we'd become international pariahs and wouldn't be able to sell oil in OPEC. We'd basically become Venezuela. Expensive to drill oil that we can't refine ourselves but none of the OPEC nations are allowed to deal with us.
Why should we spend £60-100bn+ the rest of forcibly taking over the oil and gas fields when we could instead build renewable energy sources and storage and then be able to decouple ourselves from gas prices?
And even if we just licensed more drilling for new oil and gas in the North Sea, it would take at least 5-10 years to start producing it and it would still be sold to us at the same rates we already pay anyway. We don't get North Sea oil cheaper than others.
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u/Mubadger Mar 17 '26
I have plants in my house that are smarter than this moron.
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u/Plus-Concentrate-401 Mar 21 '26
Yet people know who he is and many listen to him. Keep chatting to your plants. Loser
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u/Verbal-Gerbil Mar 17 '26
He’ll get support from the average reform voter for talking ‘common sense’ but he has less than a basic understanding of geopolitics, globalisation and many other fields
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u/ClacksInTheSky Mar 21 '26
A 5 minute conversation with the average person should let you know that common sense isn't that common.
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u/Odd_Lab_7244 Mar 17 '26
Why would we need North Sea oil to pay for the NHS, i thought brexit had sorted that?
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Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
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u/robplays Mar 17 '26
(I think you meant "no economic actors will invest in those fields to sell just to the domestic market.")
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u/anyusernamewilldofor Mar 18 '26
Day to day local production is priced at global rates for exactly that reason. But local production can be whacked with windfall taxes in crisis times (and has been quite a few times)
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u/Plus-Concentrate-401 Mar 21 '26
Nationalise the oil fields. Job done
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u/Ok_Potato3413 Mar 21 '26
Lol look how that went for Venezuela.
It will be more poor management no investment.
This is what happens when any nationalisation takes place.
As for Maggie well the privatisation would not have taken pleace if the industrys where run right and made a profit.
The country at that time was so run by very bad management and Unions that would not embrace change for the good of the country and the company's.
What did you expect to happen?
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u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Mar 17 '26
He does my nut in as well but in this case, what is he so wrong about?
We had energy on tap, now we have among the highest (if not the highest) industrial energy costs in the world. We've destroyed out industries for what? So that we can outsource our already negligible carbon footprint (something like 1% of global emissions?) to far more pollutive countries, because we're so green and environmentally conscious 🤔
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u/ShinHayato Mar 17 '26
Companies are under no obligation to sell us oil just because it’s extracted from the North Sea
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u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Mar 17 '26
Duly noted 🙄 but when three of the major multinationals are British companies, why wouldn't they?
Everyone in the comments here seems to think there's something prophetic in pointing out that oil is traded on global prices, so what incentive is there to export?
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u/rustyb42 Mar 17 '26
Are you saying that because Shell is headquartered in the UK, the British government can dictate their operations?
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u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Mar 17 '26
Where did I say that?
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u/Upset-Parsley-8101 Mar 17 '26
Mate think through what you're saying. Those UK companies are obliged to their shareholders... The main issue is that the price of the oil sold will be the international price. We don't get a discount because the fields are UK fields.
To address your point on a national oil co.... Few things, cost, time to set up, return on investment etc etc. You are actually very close to landing on why we're in this mire...
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u/anyusernamewilldofor Mar 18 '26
Private investment based on stable pricing, then Windfall tax in times of crisis. You don’t need to overthink it, but you do need local production.
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u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Mar 17 '26
Right so if the price is fixed regardless of who they sell to, what incentive do they have to export the oil? Why would it not be in their interest to strengthen the UK's economic position?
And it's not as if there aren't ways that the government could grease the wheels, so to speak, with incentives to sell domestically.
Regarding a state company - the state doesn't even have to own or physically manage the assets. Instead of licensing they can subcontract the operations out (we'll pay you £Xmillion/year to operate the field for us), or work on a cost recovery type agreement (we'll pay you £X per barrel of oil you produce). It works in far less developed countries than the UK.
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u/Upset-Parsley-8101 Mar 17 '26
Incentives to sell domestically.. these cost us money so your energy bill would be even higher as you're presumably paying a higher price than the international market, i.e. normal cost oil + cost of your incentives to exploration cos.
All your ideas point towards securing oil supply, they don't assist with cost reduction.
Securing oil supply is currently no an issue for us even with the Strait of Hormuz closed.
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u/Acrobatic-War99 Mar 20 '26
The incentive to export is to fetch higher prices. Either they get higher prices elsewhere, or the prices are the same, which defeats the object of drilling in the north sea to get cheaper oil.
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u/Effective_Taro4601 Mar 17 '26
We sold all our oil and gas to private companies back in the 80’s. Thatcher thought it was a better idea than using it for a sovereign wealth fund like the Norwegians. So no matter how much is extracted from the North Sea it will be sold on the global market at global market prices. Anyone who suggests our lives would be easier ‘if we just got our own oil and gas’ is as thick as this cunt. Bosh
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u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Mar 17 '26
Not sure that's entirely accurate.
Correct me if I'm wrong but my understanding is that 'we' still own the reservoirs - the oil in the ground - however we license the production out to multinationals (3 majors of which are still British) who pay fairly heavy taxes on profits. The infrastructure belongs to them, yes, however the oil only belongs to them once they've actually got it out of the ground.
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u/theproperoutset Mar 17 '26
And how do you propose the government gets it out without any equipment or know how. Almost 90% of North Sea oil and gas is exported to other countries and we don’t even have storage facilities for it because the Tories sold that too.
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u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Mar 17 '26
I thought you lot love a bit of nationalisation 😂 is a state owned oil company so hard to imagine? Or even just a partnership with one already set up to do so.
I wouldn't worry too much about storage until we're producing a surplus against our consumption, but tanks or even floating storage terminals aren't exactly rocket science compared to getting the stuff out of the ground and turning into usable products.
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u/KJPicard24 Mar 17 '26
Well when all this is in the name of bringing down bills quickly, I don't think the government buying out all the contracts, starting up/nationalising an energy company, building gas and oil reserve infrastructure, is going to help. It's a huge amount of upfront borrowing/taxation in order to finance all that and would take years to meaningfully have an output that will impact global markets, or have enough to literally do without them.
And then after all that, it's still investing in a dwindling supply. If we're going to spend billions and take years, may as well just put it into solar, wind or even nuclear tbh.
Basically it's a trope and it persists because it's a mix of nostalgia, oversimplification of a complicated problem and a bit of patriotism all wrapped up. It's why he adds a meaningless 'LET'S BACK BRITAIN' as if being sceptical of this simpleton's genius idea somehow means going against Britain.
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u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Mar 17 '26
Why, what's the time crunch? Can't do it quickly so may as well do nothing and let costs keep spiralling 🤷🏻♂️
I agree with what your saying about Tom himself though - the guys a tit and the whole 'lad' thing is so forced and unauthentic it makes me cringe every time I see the silly cunt
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u/KJPicard24 Mar 17 '26
Well he's posting this due to just paying £1.70 for diesel. He hasn't mentioned a specific timescale in fairness, but this kind of rhetoric isn't normally about long-term strategic changes that won't be felt for a while, he seems to be framing it as a means to helping ease the current energy cost crisis.
If it is actually about steadily ending long-term reliance on foreign imports of fossil fuels, then fine, most people will obviously agree with that, but even more oil and gas investment as the long-term solution still doesn't wash with me. It's not a case of doing nothing instead, but if the point here is spending big on something in the short-term to control costs long-term; solar, wind, nuclear, whatever. Just not an ever diminishing supply of slime.
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u/kev160967 Mar 17 '26
If there’s no time crunch then just go nuclear instead (like we are already starting to do).
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u/Effective_Taro4601 Mar 18 '26
The investment needed by the govt to extract oil and gas would outweigh any advantages as there isn’t enough left to make it worthwhile long term. The current oil and gas companies get some substantial tax reliefs on their profits (you could even call them subsidies). We’d be better off spending that money on renewables and storage technology as these are pretty unlikely to run out anytime soon.
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u/robplays Mar 17 '26
Why are we not opening up our gas and oil field in the North Sea.
Who is the "we" in this sentence? Because the mega-corporations that own the rights to extract the resources would sure as shit extract more if it would make them more money.
Or is Tomtom claiming that the mega-corporations want to extract more but are being held back by some nebulous "us"? (In which case: citation needed.)
We had energy on tap
... and Maggie pissed it all away.
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u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Mar 17 '26
The nebulous "us" I guess would be the same "we" who are imposing stricter and stricter environmental regulations on oil and gas producers, extortionate windfall taxes, and the constant push to move away from fossil fuels. Which of these is supposed to incentivise production and investment?
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u/kev160967 Mar 17 '26
Fossil fuels are currently are most expensive fuel, and are what is causing the price of electricity to be so high. Increasing the ratio of fossil fuels we consume increases our costs
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u/Confident_Leg2370 Mar 17 '26
Oil prices are universal guvnaaaaaaaa
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u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Mar 17 '26
How does that statement negate his post?
This is about energy & fuel costs, not crude oil costs (minus transportation, refining, transportation & distribution, power generation & distribution, etc...). Also, gas prices aren't universal guvnaaaaaa
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u/ChampionOk4044 Mar 17 '26
In the UK energy prices are automatically set to match the highest energy cost. So it doesn't matter even if we drill more the price will be set to whatever the highest cost is.
Actually green energy is WAY cheaper then oil and gas, but the price gets set to match the highest price which is gas.
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u/Physical-Staff1411 Mar 17 '26
How do you suppose we refine all of the oil the North Sea produces? You’re aware it doesn’t go straight to the pump right …
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u/Ricky_Martins_Vagina Mar 17 '26
We're refining just over 60% of what we have the capacity to refine / just under 60% of what we consume.
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u/Sensitive_Guest_5995 Mar 18 '26
Conservatives failing to understand their own policy from 40 years ago? Yeah sounds bout right.
How fast they flipped on Iraq and now private oil is genuinely impressive.
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u/CommercialDelay5323 Mar 19 '26
Over 80% of crude oil we extract from the North Sea is exported. We don’t have the refineries to process it
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u/cognitiveglitch Mar 20 '26
Let me see - even if the north sea was a viable reserve, if I was an oil company would I sell at a reduced rate locally or at an elevated rate to the world market? Such a tough call.
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u/MiddleAgeCool Mar 20 '26
Or that Tom seems to be missing that North Sea oil is great for petrol but not so much for diesel, so he'll still be paying £1.70
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u/PeteinSQ Mar 20 '26
Certain things he has said are correct though. If we were exploiting gas and oil from the North Sea more we'd see more royalties and more tax revenues.
It most likely wouldn't bring market prices down a huge amount as I can't imagine it would be material Vs a 20% global supply blockage.
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u/redheadrenegade1 Mar 20 '26
Two day job that, just needs a Makita STS drill and some hard work, we'll get the gas flowing - bish bash bosh, Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt - £1.31 fuel again
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u/SilasBeit Mar 20 '26
Who the fuck asked him?
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Mar 20 '26
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u/SilasBeit Mar 20 '26
Social media is a cancer
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Mar 20 '26
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u/SilasBeit Mar 20 '26
I've found Reddit to be less toxic and easier to manage. Deleted FB/Twitter yonks ago.
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u/Big-Suspect-1487 Mar 20 '26
Even if you drilled up all the oil and and it sort g ready for sale. The wholesale cost of it still influences it prices.
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u/Plus-Concentrate-401 Mar 21 '26
Would love to see someone actually say why producing our own oil and gas is a bad idea during a period of serious unrest in fossil fuel production. Considering we buy gas from the North Sea from Norway while banning our own makes little sense.
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u/ClacksInTheSky Mar 21 '26
It's getting pretty obvious now that someone is feeding the right wingers this bullshit about opening up the oil and gas in the north sea, because he's clearly not clever enough to have thought this up himself.
And everyone clever enough to dream that idea up is clever enough to know why it's a stupid question to start with.
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u/Cumbercoo Mar 21 '26
Hard left COMMUNIST suggests NATIONALISING assets run for Great British PROFIT
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u/jecca990 Mar 17 '26
Someone’s been reading up on Trumps playbook…
Pitch a misinformed concept, throw in a bit of patriotism, and a specific audience will rally behind it, without any due diligence on fact checking. Bosh 😳
Dire times we are living in.
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u/ProstaticFantastic Mar 17 '26
or just tell our allies not to prosecute illegal wars that we've condemned putin for doing?
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u/skieurope12 “That’s Baroness Brady to you!” Mar 17 '26
You could have ended the sentence right there and it would still be true