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Originally Posted by Alice
As a point of interest Stephen, what are the main sources of income down there? Presumably the export of fish or some other commodity must be the only way to generate sufficient income to keep the place going. Or, dare I say it, is HM Government still sliding back-handers out the backdoor?  |
We are completely self sufficient except for defence which of course is provided by HM forces. HMG doesn't provide any funding for local government.
Fishing is the main source of income to the Government (mostly Illex and Loligo squid but some finfish such as hake, hoki, blue whiting etc), tourism brings a fair bit in, also philately (Falklands stamps are quite sought after), customs and harbour dues for trans-shipping fishing boats, sheep farming is the main rural industry though that doesn't produce much money nowadays, growing level of meat exports to the EU, various other little things here and there bring in some money.
Oil is not yet a major contributor as none has been found but there is a lot of exploration going on - one of my jobs is as local agent for Falkland Oil & Gas Ltd and we are just about finishing a 25,000 km 2D seismic survey, which anybody who knows about oil exploration will appreciate is a #kin big survey! First drilling in our acreage expected in about 2 years time. Our bit of acreage is about 80,000 square kilometres so could comfortably fit all the North Sea oilfields in with room to spare
unrisked reservoir potential (note use of the word "unrisked"!) is ~40 billion barrels in our acreage alone so there could be a bit of cash swilling around if there is oil there....
its one of those photos you want to be in...
