Latest reports suggest that Britain has handed major oil companies the right to drill for fossil fuels in 24 new licence areas across the North Sea as part of the government’s mission to extend the life of the ageing oil and gas basin.
The North Sea regulator said that 17 oil companies, including Shell and BP, were granted licences in the Central North Sea, Northern North Sea and West of Shetland areas to “provide benefits to the local and wider economy”.
According to the North Sea Transition Authority, the latest licences, which follow an initial tranche of 27 licences offered in October last year, could begin producing oil and gas before the end of the decade.
The move has angered MPs and environmental campaigners who called the move “grossly irresponsible” and accused the government of overstating the economic benefits of the North Sea and sacrificing Britain’s climate leadership for “a pipe dream”.
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Graham Stuart, who is the minister for energy security and net zero, was forced to defend the government’s decision to encourage more North Sea oil and gas drilling despite signing up to a pledge to phase out fossil fuels at the Cop28 UN climate talks in December. He told MPs on the environmental audit committee that the new licences would be “good news in our transition to net zero”.
“If we didn’t have new oil and gas licences we would import new [liquefied natural gas] from abroad which is four times as carbon intensive as the gas produced here. I accept it’s counterintuitive but it’s not a complex argument to see it’s the right thing to do,” Stuart said. “New oil and licences strengthen our ability to get to net zero, they strengthen and support our climate leadership.”
The government has come under fierce criticism for its stated policy to extract as much oil and gas as possible from the North Sea after leading climate experts warned that fossil fuel production must end if global governments hope to curb the rise in global heating.
Philip Evans, a campaigner at Greenpeace UK, said: “The government knows that the fossil fuel industry is driving the climate crisis, but instead of cracking down on oil and gas giants like Shell, they’re greenlighting a new drilling frenzy in the North Sea.”
Critics have pointed out that the policy, which will raise billions for the Treasury in the short-term, will do little to secure Britain’s energy supplies or lower energy bills because the new licences will mostly produce oil which the UK typically exports to refineries in Europe.
Story was adapted from the Guardian.
