Approve Jackdaw, Force Carbon Capture on Rosebank
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- Edinburgh's Court of Session ruled last year that the environmental impact assessments underpinning Rosebank and Jackdaw's 2022-2023 licences were unlawful because they excluded emissions from burning the extracted oil and gas, forcing the Labour government to reconsider consent.
- Jackdaw is a small North Sea gasfield with an 11-year production life and ~24 million tonnes of total carbon emissions (~0.8% of UK annual emissions); its gas would be piped domestically and could displace dirtier US LNG imports.
- Rosebank is a 25-year North Atlantic oilfield projected to emit ~250 million tonnes of carbon, with its oil sent to the Netherlands for refining because the UK lacks capacity; it would still be producing in 2050 when the Climate Change Act requires net zero.
- Equinor, one of Rosebank's owners, has operated carbon capture at Norway's Sleipner field since 1996 and reportedly stored over 20 million tonnes of CO2 without leakage; the UK's North Sea Transition Authority has now licensed 21 CCS projects.
- UK oil and gas sector jobs fell from 441,000 in 2013 to 213,000 in 2023, with ~90% of the North Sea basin now extracted; the author argues accelerating decommissioning of ~1,700 wells due in the next six years could generate up to 25,000 jobs and ~£6.8bn in economic benefit.
- The prime minister (identified in the article as Andy Burnham) and new energy and climate secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh face competing pressure from industry and unions versus environmentalists; Labour's manifesto pledge to block new drilling licences does not apply because both fields already hold prior licences.
Why it matters: Approving Rosebank without mandating carbon capture would lock in 250 million tonnes of emissions through 2050, directly conflicting with the UK's legally binding net zero deadline. With oil and gas jobs already halved since 2013 and 1,700 wells awaiting decommissioning, the more durable economic story is plugging old fields rather than drilling new ones.
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