UK: Development of Largest Untapped Oil Field Approved

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Facts

• The UK's Northeast Transition Authority on Wednesday approved Norway-based energy company Equinor to develop the Rosebank oil and gas field, located northwest of the Shetland islands in the North Sea.¹
• Though oil production in the UK has declined in the last 20 years, the industry still employs over 200K people. The government says it will invest £6.3B (about $7.6B) into companies contracted to build it, including Equinor as the major stakeholder and Ithaca Energy with a 20% holding.²
• Equinor says the development of Rosebank, which is the largest untapped oil field in the UK, will occur in two phases and create £8.1B ($9.8B) of direct investment. It also expects the start-up stage to occur between 2026 and 2027, estimating a combined collection of 300M barrels of oil for its two phases.³
• According to the developers, this will equal a daily output of 69K barrels of oil and 44M cubic feet of gas, which would be roughly 8% of the UK's total output. While the government says the project will be used for energy security, most of the oil will likely be sold to Europe and reimported as refined products.⁴
• While Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said they'll 'still need oil and gas for decades' while simultaneously 'accelerating renewables and nuclear power,' the #StopRosebank campaign argues the oil field will produce over 200M metric tons of carbon dioxide.³
• In response to the announcement, which followed Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's announced plans to roll back fossil fuels and push renewables, shares of Ithaca and Equinor rose 7.2% and 0.9%, respectively.⁵

Sources: ¹Guardian, ²BBC News, ³CNBC, ⁴Sky news and ⁵The national.

Narratives

• Left narrative, as provided by Climatalk. Despite previous successful campaigns to stop oil field drilling, like that of the Cambo oil field last year, the UK government has shown it's still willing to put oil industry profits over the environmentally literate will of the people. This is a devastating setback in the fight to end fossil fuel burning, but the fight must not stop until Britain has secured a clean energy future for incoming generations.
• Right narrative, as provided by Gov.uk. The UK, even under the Conservative party, is still devoted to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. However, Sunak's government is also aware that you can't simply ban working Britons from driving gas cars or using oil burners, as that would absolutely destroy them economically. The UK, in line with its neighbors like Germany, is on a decades-long path to rolling back fossil fuels in a strong but careful manner.