Rosebank Oil Delayed After Rig Gear Dropped in North Sea
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- Adura said Rosebank oil production will not begin until some point in 2027 after a rig accident on 18 April dropped two pieces of drilling equipment, including a safety valve, 1,100 metres onto the seabed; no workers were hurt.
- Odfjell Drilling told internal staff the rig could be out of action for up to four months; the platform, hired from the Norwegian firm, was towed to Bergen for repairs before returning to the Rosebank site.
- Energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh is expected to decide on Rosebank and Jackdaw after emissions consultations conclude in August; Labour's 2024 manifesto pledged not to issue new licences but to honour existing ones.
- Adura's publicly filed environmental impact assessment for Jackdaw shows only 27 direct full-time jobs would be created — a figure revealed by the Guardian that Labour Environment Campaign's Mike Reader cited as evidence drilling won't save jobs long-term.
- Greenpeace co-executive director Areeba Hamid said approving Rosebank and Jackdaw would make "zero difference" to energy bills; the group and other environmental organisations are weighing potential legal action.
- Ed Miliband, now foreign secretary, previously called Rosebank "climate vandalism" while in opposition, though recent talks are believed to have explored how to permit new drilling within manifesto limits.
- Adura told the BBC earlier this week that the Jackdaw gas field, about 150 miles east of Aberdeen, could produce gas as early as October.
Why it matters: The four-month rig outage pushes any Rosebank contribution to UK supply well past winter, weakening the industry's energy-security argument at exactly the moment the new energy secretary is weighing approval. Combined with the 27-jobs figure for Jackdaw and Greenpeace preparing legal grounds, Fahnbulleh's August consultation verdict faces political and courtroom pressure from both flanks.
