- An environmentalist group called Oceana has filed a lawsuit to prevent oil and gas exploration under 31 North Sea licenses, claiming the UK government ignored expert advice.
- Earlier this year, a Scottish court struck down two North Sea licenses, ruling that the climate impact of burning extracted oil and gas was not adequately assessed.
- Despite prioritizing energy transition, the UK government maintains that North Sea oil and gas remain essential for the economy and plans to proceed with projects like Jackdaw and Rosebank.
An environmentalist outlet called Oceana has filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent oil and gas exploration and production under 31 licenses for North Sea fields awarded by the UK government back in 2022.
Oceana alleges that the granting of those licenses was unlawful because the government “ignored expert advice from its own nature advisors” when it made the decision to award them, Energy Voice reports. According to the organization, which is part of an international network of environmentalist outlets, the 31 licenses are located in marine-protected areas but the danger of oil spills was not considered in the impact assessments for development work there, Bloomberg wrote.
Earlier this year, a court in Scotland struck two licenses for North Sea fields, after environmentalists challenged them on environmental protection grounds. The court ruled that the approvals granted to the companies for field development had failed to account for the effect that burning oil and gas extracted from the fields would have on the climate. The judge presiding over the case said the projects had to undergo a more detailed assessment of that effect before production could be allowed.
The Labout government that is currently in charge of the UK has prioritized the energy transition and a slow death for the oil and gas industry in the country but it has signaled its awareness of the essential need for continued local supply of oil and gas by indicating it would give the go-ahead to both the Jackdaw and Rosebank projects despite the court’s ruling.
“North Sea oil and gas is going to be really important to the UK economy for many, many decades to come. And we want to make sure that fields that have already got licenses can continue to exploit those reserves and bring them to market,” Chancellor Rachel Reeves said this week.