Drill,
Burnham, drill? The oil basin that is a totem for Trump - and a headache for
Britain’s new PM
Matthew Taylor Environment
correspondent
The
amount of economically viable oil and gas from the North Sea has declined
rapidly since its peak at the turn of the century. Photograph: Martin
Langer/Alamy
North Sea
oil, once the driving force of the UK economy, may be dwindling but it remains
a symbol of prestige and a rich resource for political debate
Sun 23
Aug 2026 06.00 BST
When oil
was first discovered off the north-east coast of Scotland in September
1969, industry folklore has it that the duty superintendent on the rig
carefully poured it into a pickle jar commandeered from the canteen and took it
back to Amoco’s Great Yarmouth office in Norfolk. There, it was emptied into an
ash tray, sniffed and then set alight.
From that
modest start, North Sea oil – as the huge basin of oil and gas reserves quickly
became known – emerged as a driving force of the British economy and a symbol
of national power and renewal as the UK emerged from the Opec oil crisis.
By 1977,
the then Labour prime
minister, Jim Callaghan, declared: “God has given Britain her best opportunity
for 100 years in the shape of North Sea oil.” A subsequent white paper said it
offered “a unique opportunity for Britain to improve her economic performance,
raise her living standards, move forward to full employment, and develop a
socially just society”.
A decade
later, the basin became a central part of Margaret Thatcher’s political project
, with its revenues approaching 10% of the UK’s total tax take at times,
supporting a programme of tax cuts and privatisation.
Oil rig
in the North Sea, 1974. Photograph: Zuma/Shutterstock
Output
peaked at the turn of the century, when the basin produced a staggering 4.4m
barrels of oil equivalent a day. Aberdeen, chosen over Dundee by the fossil
fuel corporations for their onshore headquarters because it had fewer links to
bothersome trade unions, was booming, with offshore jobs plentiful and well
paid.
Ewan
Gibbs, a specialist in the history of energy in the UK at the University of
Glasgow, said that as the oil began to flow, it was seized upon by politicians
and the public as a symbol of British imperial might.
“At its
peak, oil was associated not only with immense wealth but also with power and
international prestige,” said Gibbs. “It came to embody a sense of national
renewal.”
Now,
those boom years are firmly in the past. The amount of economically viable oil
and gas has declined rapidly in the past two decades and by 2030 the basin will
produce just 15% of its peak output.
Many of
the biggest oil and gas corporations have left as stocks dwindle – BP
was the latest, announcing this summer an end to six decades in the basin.
And the jobs are going too. During the boom years, North Sea oil directly
employed about 120,000 people and supported hundreds of thousands more jobs
indirectly. Data from the Office for National Statistics suggests that
figure has
now dropped to about 27,000 direct employees.
However,
although its economic significance has waned, the idea of North Sea oil has
retained a disproportionate grip on the national psyche, and – as culture wars
over the climate crisis continue to be stoked by politicians and media on the
right – it remains a useful symbol of sovereignty and power for some.
“Even as
it declines, there is still a strong sense for many people that this is
Britain’s oil, that it is bountiful and belongs to the country, and that if we
don’t exploit it we are turning our back on something important,” said Gibbs.
“It is
this emotional attachment, this idea that this is our oil that means, even as
the area becomes less economically significant, it retains an outsized
importance in the country’s imagination.”
Culture
wars
In the
run-up to the 2024 general election, the Labour party announced there would be
no new exploratory licences for oil and gas in the North Sea.
It was a
significant moment in the fight against climate breakdown. In 2021, the International
Energy Agency had said there could be “no new investments in oil, gas
and coal” if the world was to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis.
Now, the government of one of the richest countries in the world was making it
clear it was moving away from fossil fuels to focus on renewable energy.
It was
also a victory for the then energy secretary, Ed Miliband. He had been making
the case within Labour that a rapid transition to a cleaner energy systems
would not only help tackle the climate crisis but had the potential to make the
UK a “clean energy superpower” and unshackle it from the increasingly volatile
fossil fuel market, creating jobs and lowering bills.
Miliband
argued that the transition to a renewable future could also offer a lifeline to
communities in north-east Scotland that had seen jobs and wealth disappear as
the flow of oil dried up, despite hundreds of new drilling licences being
awarded.
“In the
20th century through North Sea oil, Britain exported to the world,” Miliband
told a speech to the Labour party conference before the 2024 general election.
“In the 21st century … Britain will be an energy superpower once again,
exporting clean power to the world and controlling our economic destiny.
British families and businesses will never again be held to ransom by [the
Russian president, Vladimir] Putin.”
But fast
forward two years, and despite wars in Iran and Ukraine again highlighting the
perils of dependence on a volatile fossil fuel market and an escalating climate
crisis, those plans are once more at the centre of a political storm.
The
leader of Reform UK, Nigel Farage, and the Conservative party leader, Kemi
Badenoch, have called for a massive expansion of drilling in the North Sea,
claiming they would reverse the ban on new licences if elected.
In a
speech this year, Farage declared that the UK should be “self-sufficient in
gas”. Badenoch followed with the promise of a growing UK oil and gas industry
that would “ensure our energy security for generations to come”. .
Donald
Trump is also a fan of a UK version of “drill,
baby, drill” in the North Sea. In one of several interventions on the
subject, he claimed the basin was “one of the greatest reserves anywhere in the
world … with 500 years of oil and gas reserves left”.
Such
statements have left climate experts, geologists and energy specialists
scratching their heads.
Steve
Pye, a professor of energy systems and the deputy director of the Energy Institute
at University College London, said: “The North Sea basin has been in decline
since 2000. There are no credible prospects of reversing this.”
But in
the midst of a cost of living crisis, others are making the case for any
intervention, however small, that might ease the burden on households and boost
Treasury coffers. Some trade unions and parts of the Labour party are in favour
of exploiting the North Sea’s existing licences, arguing they provide some jobs
and bring in at least some tax revenue.
Ed
Miliband has long advocated a fast transition to renewable energy as a way to
shore up Britain’s energy security and reduce bills. Photograph: Murdo
MacLeod/The Guardian
Experts,
however, point
out that energy prices are set globally and there is not enough oil or
gas in the North Sea to have any impact, so there would be no reduction in UK
bills whatever the country did.
Also, the
vast majority of what is left in the North Sea is oil that overwhelmingly goes
abroad to be refined and then sold on the international markets, meaning it has
no impact on the UK’s energy security.
More of
the gas produced in the North Sea goes to UK homes and businesses but there is
less of that left, certainly not enough to make any meaningful impact on our
reliance on imports. A recent study by
Carbon Brief found that even if the government allowed new licences it
would only make a fractional difference: gas extraction from the North Sea is
forecast to drop 99% by 2050 without new licences, compared with 97% if new
licences were awarded.
Conversely,
the study found that the continued expansion of renewables and low-carbon
technologies in the North Sea would reduce reliance on volatile gas imports
much faster than allowing new drilling, with energy from new wind and solar
from the latest government auction expected to produce six times more
electricity by 2030 than new drilling licences would.
On
employment, the campaign group Uplift points out that the number of jobs
supported by the oil and gas industry has more
than halved in the last decade – from 441,000 to 214,000 today –
despite previous governments issuing hundreds of new licences in six separate
licensing rounds.
And on
tax, critics have
questioned the scale of the benefit once you take into account state subsidies
to oil and gas companies, which globally run into the
hundreds of billions of pounds.
Others
question the public appetite for fattening the profit margins of fossil fuel
companies, which made a
record $93bn in profit in the three months to June, while fossil
fuel-driven climate disasters, including wildfires and droughts, hit Europe,
the UK experienced five heatwaves this summer, and energy costs continued to
rise.
Wildfire
rages in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, after extended dry and hot
weather. Photograph: Ethan Fowler/JNA/Zuma Press/Shutterstock
In June
last year, when he was still the mayor of Greater Manchester, Burnham backed
the fossil fuel treaty, a proposed international pact on phasing out coal, oil
and gas – calling it a “lifeline” that “all governments” should join.
In recent
weeks, Burnham, now prime minister, has spooked many who want to see this
commitment transferred to national government when he said he would take
a “pragmatic”
approach to oil and gas drilling in the North Sea and that the
government could not ignore the potential resources it holds.
Miatta
Fahnbulleh, who replaced Miliband as energy secretary, has expressed
similar views since taking office, although previously she has spoken out about
the realities of the climate crisis. With consultations on the Jackdaw and
Rosebank field projects now closed, a decision from the government could come
at any time.
Tessa
Khan, the director at Uplift, said it was “a dangerous fantasy” to talk up the
potential of North Sea oil as a fix for Britain’s problems.
“We have
seen that, time and again, the arguments put forward by the fossil fuel lobby
and their supporters in favour of more drilling have fallen away upon making
contact with reality – from falsehoods about lowering bills to exaggerations
about improving energy security. After 50 years of drilling, the fact is the UK
has burned through most of its gas reserves, while most of what remains is oil
that is largely exported.
“Politicians
know this. Pretending otherwise for political gain, on an issue as serious as
energy security, is unedifying and a betrayal of UK energy workers who urgently
need a coherent plan to deliver long-term, secure jobs – which will only now
come from renewables and other industries – not some pipe dream.”
At its
core, Khan said, the ongoing debate was the result of an extensive lobbying
campaign by the oil and gas industry for lower taxes and greater profits for
shareholders and executives.
“We
shouldn’t fall for it. The lesson of the past five years is clear: the best
protection against global energy shocks is accelerating renewables and helping
households and businesses switch to clean electricity. This is just common
sense in today’s world.”
Green
jobs
In
October last year, the UK government unveiled plans for an extra 400,000 jobs
in the burgeoning green economy over the next five years.
Making
the announcement at the Siemens turbine factory in Hull, Miliband said the
government planned to double the number of people working in green industries
by 2030, with a particular focus on training those coming from fossil fuel
jobs, school leavers, the unemployed, veterans and ex-offenders.
The
national plan was given a cautious welcome by unions, from Unite to the GMB,
which have long been pushing for a more detailed plan for how people will
switch from fossil fuel to clean energy jobs.
The green
economy is certainly becoming an increasingly significant part of the UK’s
future. A recent report from the Confederation of British Industry found it
already supported a million jobs and higher wages, with nearly half a trillion
pounds of further investment in the pipeline.
This
rapid growth is visible in the North Sea itself, with huge windfarms springing
up across the basin. The electricity they generate accounts
for about 18% of the UK’s total. Overall, in 2025, renewables provided
50.4% of the UK’s electricity, compared with 31.8% from fossil fuels.
Redcar
windfarm off the Teesside coast. Photograph: Peter Oliver/Alamy
Despite
this rapid growth, there are growing concerns that any benefits from these
developments are bypassing the workers and communities that need them most.
Unite and
GMB, the unions representing oil and gas workers, say the transition to
renewable energy is not delivering the secure long-term jobs that were promised
and – to the dismay of climate activists and others
within the union movement – they have been vocal about their support
for more drilling in the North Sea.
Others
fear the renewables sector is experiencing a repeat of mistakes made during the
oil boom, when a big slice of the profits and benefits were taken by private
oil companies.
Connor
Watt, of Platform, which works with current and former oil workers, unions,
community groups and climate activists across Scotland, said: “The three main
wins from the transition to renewables should be jobs, cheaper energy and
income from electricity generation that can be used to bolster public finances,
to help local communities. But at the moment, despite huge renewable projects
going ahead, none of those three things have materialised and people are
beginning to wonder why.”
Firefighters
at the site of wildfires near Dunwich Heath, in Suffolk, in
July. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/EPA
Oil and
gas workers, unions and community energy groups have organised a campaign to
rethink how the government is conducting the “just transition”. They are
calling for a greater role for community ownership and nationalisation to stop
the profits and benefits bypassing local workers and communities. They are also
calling for the government to set up a community wealth fund to ensure the
benefits are felt across the country.
Watt said
North Sea oil had brought some local wealth and jobs but after a decades-long
boom there was “no real legacy to speak of.”
Many
campaigners look to Norway, where the government set up a sovereign wealth fund
when it discovered oil and gas in the North Sea. It is used to safeguard the
economy and fund future public spending and is now worth more than $2tn – the
biggest fund of its kind in the world. Analysts say that if the UK had taken a
similar approach, a UK sovereign wealth fund could
be worth about £850bn now.
Watt
said: “If you compare what has happened here with what Norway did with its
sovereign wealth fund, which has had huge benefits for the people of that
country, we did something totally different – a market-led approach which has
seen the vast majority of the benefit flow into the profits of global
corporations rather than local communities.
“Once
again we are seeing a market-led approach [in the renewables industry], where
the vast majority of benefits are simply not going to local communities. People
are increasingly disillusioned after decades of economic decline. Life is
getting harder and the likes of Reform are exploiting that frustration to
deepen division and line the pockets of their industry backers.”
The
debate about North Sea oil and gas extraction looks set to rumble on, even as
its economic significance dwindles.
But for
many whose lives and livelihoods are entangled with what happens there, it is a
distraction from the decisions that will actually shape their future.
Watt
said: “The real question policymakers and local communities must grapple with
now is: can the UK capitalise on the renewable energy revolution? And if it
does, will it be the workers and communities across the UK who benefit, or
corporate profit margins?”
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