The British government must soon decide whether it should give consent to two oil and gasfields, Rosebank in the North Atlantic and Jackdaw in the North Sea. Amid both insecurity of energy supplies and deadly evidence of the climate crisis, the prime minister, Andy Burnham, is facing pressure from the oil and gas industry and unions on one side, and environmentalists on the other. Labour’s manifesto commitment not to approve new drilling licences offers little help, because the fields already have licences, granted by the previous Conservative government in 2022 and 2023.
But last year, Edinburgh’s court of session ruled that the environmental impact assessments on which this decision relied were unlawful. The Conservative government had, the court ruled, failed to include the emissions generated when the oil and gas from the fields is burned. The court allowed work to continue on the fields, but a new assessment had to be done and approval sought again.
The issue facing the new energy and climate secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, is whether the additional information on the fields’ global emissions alters the grounds for consent. Although invariably discussed together, the two fields are very different. Jackdaw is a small gasfield, with a production life of only 11 years.
Its total carbon emissions will be only around 24m tonnes. Annually this would equate to around 0.8% of the UK’s total emissions. The gas would be piped into the UK, so would be consumed domestically.
As this would probably displace dirtier liquified natural gas (LNG) imported from the US, it would make a small contribution to the UK’s energy security and emissions reduction. By contrast, Rosebank is a large oilfield, with a 25-year life. During that time it would generate around 250m tonnes of carbon emissions.
The oil would be sent to the Netherlands for refining, since the UK no longer has the appropriate capacity – and very little, if any, is likely to be used in the UK. So it would not contribute to our energy security. There are good reasons, therefore, for the government to make different decisions on the two fields.
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