The largest oil field in the world

The largest oil field in the world was discovered yesterday just 30 kilometers off Scotland’s coast.

As many Scots reeled from the defeat of their push for independence, the British government announced that the massive oil field has the potential to produce up to 15 million barrels a day, if not more, generating trillions of dollars annually for decades.

Located within Scotland’s territorial waters in the North Sea, near the coastal city of Aberdeen, the oil field measures about 560-by-80 km (348-by-50 miles), surpassing the second-largest, Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar Field, which produces 5 million barrels a day.

“To think we believed Scotland’s oil was running out, when there’s enough oil here to last hundreds and hundreds of years,” Jock Grant-Menzies of the British Treasury told BBC News. “I would hate to be in the Middle East right now. Whoever controls these Scottish oil fields controls the world.”

Scotland’s North Sea oil and gas reserves were a source of contention during the referendum on Scottish independence, with supporters and opponents disputing how much oil was left and if it could economically sustain an independent Scotland.

British Prime Minister David Cameron hailed the lucrative oil field’s discovery, noting it “will make London richer than Dubai.”