First Minister John Swinney said he understood why the SNP lost.
“The Conservatives mobilised a campaign which was about capturing the understandable anger there is in Aberdeen and the northeast about the issues affecting the oil and gas sector,” he said.
Swinney said he was trying to help the industry by urging Labour to scrap the Energy Profits Levy.
At present, it means that operators are handing over 78% of their profits to the Treasury.
Aberdeen is at the heart of the debate around the UK’s energy future, and the UK government has chosen the city as the home of GB Energy – its fledgling publicly-owned energy company.
Lumsden, a former oil and gas worker, said his constituents had sent a message that “the destruction of the oil and gas industry must stop now”.
The north-east MSP defeated SNP candidate Richard Thomson, a former MP for Gordon, by a margin of more than 6,000 votes, with the Tories taking almost half of all ballots cast.
Amy Cameron, from Greenpeace UK, said “false promises” from the Tories would not deliver a prosperous economic future for people in Aberdeen.
She said a just transition has to be strong enough for people to “let go of the industry that built their community” and “trust that the new economy will be ready to catch them”.
