Glasgow-based engineer Weir Group has struck a deal to buy a US valve-maker for up to $47 million (£30m).
The firm said the acquisition of Delta Industrial Valves would boost its presence in mining and oil sands markets by extending its range of products.
Based in Michigan, Delta employs about 70 people and generated underlying pre-tax earnings of $6.2m in the last 12 months.
Weir chief executive Keith Cochrane said: “Delta’s strong brand and reputation, together with Weir’s global capability, mean we will be able to offer our customers new ways to increase efficiency at a time when the industry is focused on reducing costs and increasing productivity.”
Delta vice-president Mark Johnson added: “We see significant opportunities ahead in what remain long-term growth markets.”
UK taxpayers could be liable for a significant share of the North Sea’s multi-billion pound decommissioning costs over the next 40 years, according to a new study.
The GMB union said its research into oil and gas fields across the UK Continental Shelf suggested an increasing financial burden will be placed on the Treasury in the form of tax refunds to oil and gas companies.
Average costs for North Sea decommissioning expenditure are growing by 14 per cent a year, with the final figure now expected to be more than £100 billion, said the report.
The GMB called for the UK and Scottish Governments to bring forward an urgent investment programme to get Scottish ports and fabrication yards “decommissioning ready”.
The union’s Scotland Secretary Gary Smith said: “If we don’t act fast then it could mean the worst of all worlds: A chance to boost economic and employment prospects gone and the taxpayer paying for the clean-up of the North Sea while other countries profit from decommissioning at our expense.
“The taxpayer is sick and tired of dishing out billions of their hard earned money in subsidies to corporations with little to no return, so doing nothing at both the UK and Scottish Government levels by ‘leaving it to the market’ is simply not an option.
“GMB Scotland is very clear that the economic, political and moral arguments for government intervention are compelling and with the Autumn Statement and Scottish Draft Budget on the immediate horizon, the time for politicians to act is now.
“All of us are going to pay for North Sea decommissioning so the least that our governments can do is to take the appropriate action to ensure more of our own money is redistributed back into our economy and not into the pockets of largely overseas-based oil and gas contractors.”
Lang Banks, director of the environmental group WWF Scotland, said: “The GMB are absolutely right to highlight the massive liability facing UK taxpayers in order to clean up the mess left behind by North Sea oil and gas industry. Having made hundreds of millions of pounds in profits over the past few decades, the costs for decommissioning old rigs and restoring the marine environment should be being fully covered by the companies themselves.
“In the interests of tackling climate change we need to see an end to all Government subsidies and incentives that encourage new fossil fuel extraction, including North Sea oil and gas. Instead we need to see investment by UK and Scottish ministers in the development of oil and gas decommissioning facilities and the continued acceleration of renewables right across Scotland.”
The Chancellor’s Autumn Statement exposed the reality of the “Brexit con”, the First Minister has said.
Nicola Sturgeon said dropping the Leave campaign’s £350 million a week NHS funding boost pledge and the increase in borrowing shows the “true cost” of the vote to exit the European Union.
Speaking at First Minister’s Questions, she said: “The Autumn Statement starkly set out the cost of Brexit to the UK economy and public finances, with economic growth and tax revenue revised downwards and borrowing and inflation sharply up.
“In responding, the UK Government had the opportunity to end its failed austerity policies, instead the Chancellor has continued with the cuts that are reducing the budgets for public services and cutting the income of families across Scotland.”
She welcomed the “small increase in capital investment”, but said by 2020 the capital budget would be around 8% lower in real terms than when the Tories took office.
She added: “The Tories don’t like to hear this because what we are hearing now is the reality of their recklessness on Brexit - £100 billion of additional borrowing, debt increasing by around £200 billion, debt to GDP ratio hitting 90%, lower growth and lower real wages, a real squeeze on living standards.
“Yesterday we started to see perhaps for the first time laid bare the true cost of Brexit. Rather than there being the promise of £350 million extra a week for the National Health Service, what we saw yesterday is that the additional borrowing, just the additional borrowing, caused by Brexit will amount to £225 million a week.
“That’s why I’m so determined that we continue to explore every option to protect Scotland’s interests and in particular to protect our place in the single market, because that’s how we minimise the costs of Brexit that are being imposed on us by the Conservative Party.”
Tory MSP Murdo Fraser said the Chancellor had announced £800 million extra capital spending for Scotland, £74 million extra resource spending, £3.3 million extra for Scottish charities, a freeze in fuel duty, an increase in the personal allowance to help the lowest earners, an increase in research and development spending, and a new City Deal.
He said: “Why can’t the First Minister for once stop being so miserable and just welcome this good news?”
Scottish Greens co-convener Patrick Harvie said the Autumn Statement had contained a “great deal more good news for the wealthiest”, and called for the Scottish Budget to include “progressive” tax policies as well as to go further on issues such as the living wage, energy efficiency and topping up benefits.
He said: “Does the First Minister agree that the Scottish Budget must not only avoid reproducing the same unjust policies that are being pursued south of the border but must result in a cumulative benefit to Scotland that closes the inequality gap and leaves far fewer people in Scotland genuinely struggling?”
Ms Sturgeon said: “The Autumn Budget statement yesterday was a case of taking money away from the poorest to give it to the richest in our society. I think it was us seeing the Tories showing their true colours.”
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