A week after putting the brakes on certain climate commitments, the United Kingdom on Wednesday granted “development and production authorization” for a controversial field located in the North Sea, drawing the wrath of environmental defenders .
The Rosebank oil and gas field is the largest undeveloped field in the United Kingdom, according to Ithaca Energy, a subsidiary of the Israeli Delek, which will exploit it with the Norwegian Equinor.
The green light was given on Wednesday by the North Sea Transition Authority “taking into account considerations” linked to the carbon neutrality objective, the regulatory body argues in its press release.
Without convincing environmentalists: the British Prime Minister, the conservative Rishi Sunak, after announcing the postponement of several key measures of the United Kingdom’s climate policy, “proved once and for all that he placed the profits of oil companies at the forefront above ordinary people,” denounced the NGO Greenpeace in a press release.
It’s a “morally obscene” decision, launched Caroline Lucas, Green MP, on X (formerly Twitter). “It will not improve energy security or reduce bills, but it will break our climate commitments and demolish the position of a global pioneer” of the United Kingdom in terms of energy transition, according to the elected official.
The Scottish government is concerned that “the majority of what will be extracted from Rosebank will go abroad”, wrote the first minister of the region, Humza Yousaf, on hydrocarbons to Scotland, but “our future lies not in unlimited oil and gas extraction, but in accelerating our just transition to renewable energy,” he stressed.
London invokes energy security
Between a plethora of new oil and gas exploration permits and an offshore wind crisis, clouds are gathering over the UK’s carbon neutrality promises, with the war in Ukraine having put energy security back at the heart of London’s priorities.
“As we transition to renewable energy, we will always need oil and gas — it makes sense to use our own resources such as Rosebank,” Rishi Sunak said on X on Wednesday. The authorization of the new field “is the right long-term decision for the UK’s energy security”, he added.
Asked about the controversial field, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN chief António Guterres, responded Wednesday that “the secretary-general thinks we need to accelerate climate ambitions, not go backwards.” “He has said repeatedly that the world will not be able to use all the oil and gas that has already been discovered,” he added.
Mr. Sunak notably announced a week ago the postponement by five years, to 2035, of the ban on the sale of new thermal cars, and postponed the ban on oil and coal boilers to “give more time », according to him, to the British affected by the cost of living crisis. He then attracted criticism from environmental associations, businesses, sectoral associations, and political leaders even in his own camp.
Equinor and Ithaca announced in separate press releases an investment of $3.8 billion in the Rosebank mining project, located off the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland. Production is expected to begin in 2026-2027. The oil field’s resources are estimated at around 300 million barrels of oil, and Phase 1 of the project alone, launched on Wednesday, is expected to produce around 245 million barrels. The deposit will also produce gas.