Developing the UK's North Sea oil fields further would likely end up being a pointless disaster

One of the more upsetting things that Andy Burnham’s government seems oddly enthusiastic to do is to enable the expansion the North Sea oil fields. This is mostly in the name of helping with improving the UK’s economy, cutting our cost of living and improving energy security.

However, all these motivations seem set to be utterly unrealisable given that we are not talking about a situation where the UK state owns the oil. What’s being talked about is not a nationalisation. Instead, it’s simply that private companies would be granted licenses to exploit further the oil fields and sell it onto the oil markets to whoever wants to buy it.

“Drilling for Oil and Gas Will not Reduce Bills or Deliver Energy Security” says the UK Energy Research Centre.

Spiking prices appear to favour home production. But the prices UK consumers pay for oil and gas are driven by international markets, regardless of whether it is extracted from the UK Continental Shelf or somewhere else. While oil and gas markets are different in significant ways, their available supply from the UK is small relative to overall market demand. Squeezing additional oil and gas production from the UK may be technically possible, but it will have negligible impact on the UK cost of living.

Another odd argument I’ve heard is that it’s somehow better for the environment than shipping in oil extracted by foreign competitiors. I suppose people are thinking of transportation needs? Buy local, and all.

Of course, this is not what drives the damage and not going to be helped by extracting new oil out of the sea no matter who does it. Besides in this case it seems like to actually make things, if anything, even worse:

Although the carbon-intensity of UK gas is lower than imported LNG, carbon emissions from UK oil and gas production are almost three times as large (per unit extracted) as Norway, the primary source of UK gas imports.

So:

Assertions that drilling the North Sea will provide energy resilience and affordability in the face of current fuel price shocks are a delusion.

A newer article in the Guardian shows that the further exploitation of these damaging and declining oil fields also does nothing for the economy, at least in the longer term. Further fossil fuels = further environmental destruction; something we’ll need to deal with if we want to survive.

The climate damage caused by developing the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields under consideration by the UK government would destroy their economic benefits many times over, according to an analysis.

It estimates the economic damage caused by the carbon pollution from the oil and gas produced would be between £119bn and £336bn in the coming decades, compared with the £28.7bn in value to the UK estimated by Adura, the fossil fuel company promoting the new fields.

These incredible costs are, if anything, likely to be an undercount:

The assessment applies peer-reviewed research on how rising temperatures harm economies to the production estimates for the fields from the company. The figures are likely to be underestimates, as they do not include losses from amplified extreme weather, sea level rise or climate deaths.

Such that:

“Expanding oil and gas production in the North Sea is not just an environmental crime but also economically illiterate”

Every pro increasing North Sea oilfield extraction argument fails to stand up according to experts. The UK is certainly facing all sorts of economic crises and difficulties at present, but it would be short-sighted, immoral and seemingly largely pointless to go down this route.

The real beneficiares of this change are, as ever, going to be the shareholders of huge oil companies, who have already been accused of “cashing in on human misery”.

Between 8 of them they’ve raked in an incredible $93 billion profits in the last three months.

The companies have used the biggest disruption of fossil fuel supplies in the market’s history to almost double their combined profits from just under $50bn in the same period last year, with campaigners warning that millions of households are left paying the price in higher bills and climate chaos.

The data suggests the eight oil companies – Aramco, BP, Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies, Eni, Chevron and ExxonMobil – made more than $700,000 of profit every minute over the spring quarter.

All this whilst British citizens have been dying due to the recent heatwaves, in addition to the horrific life and health destroying climate driven disasters in other parts of the world.

Things are…not going well on the heat front:

The obvious solution to part of our economic woes? Yes, it concerns oil companies - but it’s not via letting them print further masses of money at our expense.

Patrick Galey, the lead on fossil fuels at Global Witness, said: “BP’s sky-high profits are a scandalous reminder of who’s been cashing in on human misery this year. While wildfires threaten communities across the world, drought bites and energy costs spiral, ordinary families are paying the price for big oil’s prioritisation of shareholder wealth over a livable planet.”

He added: “It’s time to make oil giants pay up to repair the climate breakdown they’re driving. Think how many fire and flood defences we could build, or how many solar panels we could install, if big oil paid their fair share in taxes.”