Mr Gray, a Labour councillor who worked at the former oil yards at Ardersier and Nigg, said the North Sea oil and gas boom of the 1970s could be replicated by the rush towards renewables.

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What Gray and other experts do expect to see are more acquisitions of smaller oil companies, particularly the ones with unique reserves or technologies that can fill out the portfolios of the majors.

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These included everyone from railway magnate Collis Huntington to oil mogul Edward Doheny to the embodiment of power, Los Angeles Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis.

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