The UK has opened a new licensing round for companies to explore for oil and gas in the North Sea — a decision which is at odds with international climate activists, who say fossil fuel projects should be shut down instead of expanding.
The UK’s government said that nearly 900 locations are being offered for exploration, with as many as 100 licences set to be awarded.
Britain’s Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said the new exploration will boost energy security and support skilled jobs.
“Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine means it is now more important than ever that we make the most of sovereign energy resources,” Rees-Mogg said in a statement.
The licensing process will be fast-tracked in parts of the North Sea that are near existing infrastructure and so have the potential to be developed quickly, according to the North Sea Transition Authority. It says the average time between discovery and first production is close to five years but that gap is shrinking.
Offshore Energies UK, which represents the oil and gas industry say there could be as much as 15 billion barrels of oil left in the North Sea. It says that new fields will be less polluting than their predecessors and in a statement said there would be an environmental “bonus”.
However, environmentalists argue that the decision defies warnings from the world’s leading energy organisation, the International Energy Agency, that no new fossil fuel project is compatible with efforts to curb global heating, which is driven primarily by burning fossil fuels.
An analysis of the UK’s untapped North Sea oil and gas fields by US-based Global Energy Monitor has warned that developing even one of them would run counter to the UK’s climate goals.
