Oil's plunge dents prospects for Scottish independence

Edinburgh, Scotland

THE Transocean Winner, a rig filled with more than 300 tonnes of diesel and weighing 18,740 tonnes, broke away in an August storm to drift onto the rocks on the Isle of Lewis, in far western Scotland. The huge semi-submersible oil rig detached in rough seas from a tug trying to take it to Malta, and amid worries about pollution, looked massive and forlorn as salvage crews tried to free it and refloat it.

But the Transocean Winner, both in its plight and in its journey away from the North Sea, is a symbol of Scotland's growing problem. At the same time that North Sea production slips and oil and gas become harder and more expensive to extract, the price of energy has fallen sharply.