Scotland:the poorest oil producing country in Europe

There are 5 key oil-producing countries in Europe: Norway, Scotland, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands. Of these, Norway and Scotland are, by far, the biggest producers of North Sea Oil. Yet whilst Norway, per head of population, is the 2nd richest country in the world, Scotland’s wealth per head of population lags behind every other oil producing country in Europe. Indeed, it lags behind practically every other country in Western Europe, whether oil-producing or not – including the UK as a whole! Quite how Scotland actually benefits from the Union remains something of a mystery…

Norway, a country of 4,610,820 people (July 2006 est.) had a per capita GDP in 2005 of $42,800*. It is the 2nd richest country in the world per head of population. Yet Scotland, with a comparable population (5,094,800, according to the 2005 estimate) and sharing the same North Sea Oil field as Norway has a per capita GDP of only $25,546*. In other words, your average Scot is only 60% as wealthy as their Norwegian counterpart. Then again, Norway doesn’t gift its oil wealth to its more populous neighbour, Sweden…

Yet, Scotland doesn’t just lag behind its oil-producing counterparts. It is, in reality, despite its vast natural resources, one of the poorest countries in Western Europe. Indeed, treating Scotland separately from the UK, it would rank behind every one of the following European countries (listed in order of wealth per head of population): Luxembourg, Norway, Ireland, Iceland, Denmark, San Marino, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom (as a whole), Germany, Sweden, Italy, France, Monaco and Andorra. In fact, Scotland actually ranks only 19th in terms of GDP per head of population, seven places behind the United Kingdom as a whole.

Source: Wikipedia