Harnessing the power of the North Sea to boost Britain's energy security

Yesterday in Scotland, the Prime Minister committed to hundreds of new North Sea oil and gas licences and announced two new locations for carbon capture clusters, boosting our energy security, slashing emissions and growing the economy. 

• The Conservatives are committed to bolstering our domestic energy supply and that means harnessing the power of the North Sea. 
• So yesterday, in Scotland, the Prime Minister confirmed our commitment to hundreds of new North Sea oil and gas licenses. He also confirmed project Acorn in the North East of Scotland and project Viking in the Humber which will provide two new carbon capture usage and storage clusters – which as well as protecting the environment will build on a thriving clean industry in the North Sea and support 50,000 jobs
• The climate change committee confirm we will need oil and gas when we reach net zero. This week’s announcements secures a clean future for the oil and gas industry, reduces our reliance on imported fossil fuels and supports hundreds of thousands of jobs.

This will harness the power of the North Sea to boost energy security.

• Global energy supplies have been disrupted and weaponised by the likes of Putin, causing household bills to soar and economic growth to slow around the world. 
• Whilst we are a world-leader in renewables and our new Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is focused on getting cheaper, cleaner, more secure sources of energy, we must do more to bolster our energy security.

That is why we are announcing plans to boost our energy security and power more of Britain from Britain and by:

• Committing to hundreds of new oil and gas field licences in the North Sea, making sure we’re not reliant on expensive, foreign imports
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• Investing in Carbon Capture and Storage, delivering on our net zero ambitions while creating 25,000 jobs and driving £10 billion of investment

This will cut bills, cut emissions, and cut our dependence on foreign imports, safeguarding our long-term energy security, supporting families with the cost of living, and delivering on the Prime Minister’s pledge to grow the economy.

Oil and gas will play a pivotal role in our energy security for decades to come and we are better off producing it at home:

• The UK, like most major economies, is highly dependent on oil and gas and will be for decades to come. 
• We get 75 per cent of our energy from oil and gas, and according to the Committee on Climate Change, oil and gas will still provide more than half of our energy needs in 2035, and 24 per cent of our energy needs even in a net zero 2050. 
• This is similar to other advanced economies. Japan gets 85 per cent of its energy from fossil fuels, the United States 81 per cent and Germany 76 per cent.
• Our North Sea Oil and Gas sector supports 200,000 jobs. The North Sea has produced over 46 billion barrels of oil equivalent of oil and gas, and paid around £400 billion in production taxes since the UK’s offshore oil and gas was discovered. 
• The Energy Profits Levy, which taxes the windfall profits of the energy companies, has raised around £5.9 billion to date, and expected to raise almost £26 billion by March 2028 – helping to fund our cost of living support worth £3,300 per household.

Some of our political opponents want to ban any new North Sea oil and gas licences. This is not a plan to protect the environment, but to wreck jobs, the standard of living of many families, and Britain's energy security. 

• Blocking the production of North Sea oil and gas would increase our dependence on foreign imports, driving up prices and damaging the environment.

• Projections by the North Sea Transition Authority suggest that stopping investment in new North Sea oil and gas fields would mean that by 2035 the proportion of UK oil and gas demand met by net imports could increase by around 10 per cent, adding significantly to the trade deficit.

• Importing oil and gas is more expensive and will reduce our tax revenues – meaning less funding for our public services and higher taxes. The North Sea Transition Authority has identified 22 major oil and gas projects that could provide 1.5 billion barrels in the North Sea. Choosing instead to import that oil at today’s prices would cost billions. 

• Importing oil and gas will harm our ambition to reach net zero. According to the North Sea Transition Authority, imported gas has a carbon footprint which is three times that of domestically produced gas. 

• Lord Deben, Chair of the Committee on Climate Change, acknowledged that 'UK extraction has a relatively low carbon footprint (more clearly for gas than for oil) and the UK will continue to be a net importer of fossil fuels for the foreseeable future, implying there may be emissions advantages to UK production replacing imports'. 

Carbon capture will not only play a pivotal role in our ability to reach net zero, but can create up to 50,000 jobs and help grow the economy. 

• Carbon capture and storage will play a crucial role in reaching net zero, allowing us to store emissions from gas generation deep under the sea, and the UK has one of the greatest storage potentials of any country in the world, of 78 billion tonnes. 
• This will not only help us reach net zero, but has significant export potential, and the sector could support up to 50,000 jobs by 2030. 

That is why we are bolstering our energy security, making sure we get more of our energy from Britain:

• Committing to hundreds of new oil and gas field licenses in the North Sea, protecting our energy security as we source vital energy at home instead of from abroad. 
• We opened a new round of offshore licencing last year and expect new licences under that round to be issued in September. 
• But this will not be the last licencing round. We are announcing a joint commitment with the North Sea Transition Authority to undertake future licensing to produce as much oil and gas domestically as is economically and environmentally possible.
• Announcing two new carbon capture and storage clusters in North East Scotland and the Humber, creating 25,000 jobs and driving £10 billion of investment in the area. The two new clusters in Acorn, North East Scotland, and Viking in Humberside, should be operational before 2030. This is in addition to the clusters being developed in Teesside and Merseyside (with an aim to be operational in 2027).

 

Our record on protecting families from high energy bills and delivering on our net zero ambition:

• Thanks to our Energy pricet guarantee and other measures to protect everyone from what would otherwise have been extortionate energy bills, partly funded by a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, we paid half of the typical household’s energy bills over the winter months and brought inflation down by two per cent. 

• Our Energy Price Guarantee saved families on average £1,500 on their energy bills this winter, funded by our windfall tax on oil and gas profits, which brings the headline rate of tax for sector to 75 per cent.

• We are a world leader on net zero, cutting our emissions faster than any other G7 country while growing the economy. We have cut our emissions by almost 48 per cent between 1990 and 2021, while growing the economy by 65 per cent. The UK was the first major economy to commit to a legally binding target of net zero by 2050.

• Our investment in renewable energy is creating hundreds of thousand of jobs and delivering more home-grown, clean energy than ever before. In 2022, renewable electricity generation accounted for more than 41 per cent of total electricity generation, a four-fold increase since 2010, and we are home to the four largest offshore wind farms in the world. There are now 430,000 jobs in low carbon businesses and their supply chains across the country.