According to studies, oil and gas businesses operating in the North Sea are not making the transition to renewable energy sources for their investments.
Three-quarters of the offshore oil and gas companies operating in the United Kingdom intend to spend all of their money between now and the end of the decade on sustained fossil fuel production, according to data gathered by the analyst firm Rystad.
Despite assertions by the industry that they require permission to continue extracting fossil fuels in order to provide funds for their transition to clean energy, only seven out of 87 firms will spend any money at all on renewable energy projects in the United Kingdom before that time.
Just two of those seven intend to make sure that the majority of their investment portfolios will be renewables by the year 2030, according to the advocacy firm Uplift’s analysis of the data.
In spite of the fact that the Labour administration has prohibited the granting of new licences for oil and gas fields in the North Sea, existing fields will be permitted to continue their operations. Furthermore, no licences that are now in the process of being granted will be revoked, which means that several potential fields that are in the preliminary stages of authorisation could still be granted.
In order to emphasise the government’s commitment to a “just transition” to clean energy, which would ensure that new jobs are created as old ones in fossil fuels decline, the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, announced plans for the new Great British Energy company, which will boost renewable projects in the United Kingdom, to have its headquarters in Aberdeen, the home of the North Sea oil and gas industry. This would be done in order to ensure that the transition to clean energy is fair.
Labour’s proposal to prohibit the granting of licenses to operate in the North Sea has been met with vehement opposition by the industry, and it was also the target of furious attacks from the Conservatives throughout the general election campaign. The prohibition will only slightly hasten the North Sea’s decline, according to a different analysis by Carbon Brief. This is due to the fact that the majority of the fields have already been significantly depleted or exhausted.
Campaigners claimed that the new data, which the Guardian reviewed, showed that oil and gas companies had little intention of changing their business strategies.
The executive director of Uplift, Tessa Khan, made the following statement: “It is abundantly clear that the oil and gas industry is not living up to the promises it has made.” In the North Sea, the vast majority of operators have no intention of investing in renewable energy and are purely interested in making a profit from oil and gas for as long as the North Sea’s diminishing resources enable them to do so.
Not only would the failure of oil and gas corporations to invest in a transition to clean energy slow down the United Kingdom’s attempts to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the year 2050, but it would also make it more difficult for oil and gas workers to find other employment opportunities. She issued a warning about this matter.
As she put it, “This pretence [of investing in renewables] is leading to real-world consequences for supply-chain firms, oil and gas workers, and the communities that they support,” she said. “Over the past ten years, the basin has experienced a decline, which has led to a more than 50% decrease in the number of jobs supported by the industry. Additionally, opportunities resulting from the transition for supply chain companies have not materialised.”
She urged the Labour Party to refrain from giving in to the industry’s demands for preferential treatment and instead concentrate its efforts for a fair transition on businesses that are truly environmentally conscious. It is very evident that this sector is moving in a direction that is dissimilar to the one that it promotes. The labour force urgently needs to develop a genuine transition plan that takes into account the needs of supply-chain enterprises, workers, and the communities in which they live.
An official spokeswoman for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero stated, “We are engaging with industry, workers, and trade unions to provide certainty through a phased and responsible transition in the North Sea.”
Additionally, the United Kingdom will work with industry to become a global leader in environmentally friendly technologies, bringing jobs and investment to every region of the nation thanks to our national wealth fund, which has more than seven billion pounds in support.