In today’s newsletter: As we enter our fifth summer heatwave, Andy Burnham’s government is looking at what the UK should do with its remaining North Sea oil and gas
Good morning. What a difference a new job can make. “To have a shot at staying within 1.5C global warming, we can’t have any new oil or gasfields … It’s irresponsible and shortsighted to be funding new #fossilfuels when we need to be getting to #NetZero.”
This was the 2022 message from Miatta Fahnbulleh, now the secretary of state for energy security and net zero. It’s a testament to her remarkable rise that Fahnbulleh wasn’t even an MP when she posted it four years ago. Today, she is in the cabinet, facing (or is the face of, at least) one of the most challenging, and potentially controversial questions looming for the new government: to drill or not to drill, baby?
Two sites are the focus of fierce debate. Yesterday, a public consultation on whether to greenlight extraction at one of them – Jackdaw – closed. Next Monday, it’ll be the same for the other, Rosebank. Andy Burnham has been silent about the climate crisis since taking office. As we enter yet another heatwave, what his government does next will be a defining signal of intent on the issue.
But what would extraction actually mean, and how many options are open to Fahnbulleh? That’s the subject of today’s First Edition, after a roundup of this morning’s headlines.
Colombia | More than 100 people have died after a powerful earthquake struck western Colombia, collapsing and severely damaging scores of buildings in major cities including Cali and Pereira.
UK weather | Almost three-quarters of England is now in drought, with four more regions officially declared, and as much of Europe braces for its fifth climate crisis-driven heatwave this summer.
Crime | Police are investigating whether Joshua Kerry, the man charged with the murder of the former Reform UK and Conservative politician Ann Widdecombe, had any role in an attempted burglary last year at the then London home of Nigel Farage.
China | More than a million people were moved to safety across eastern China by Sunday evening as powerful Typhoon Dolphin made landfall amid fears torrential rain would cause flooding and landslides.
Ukraine | Russia has banned voting against the war in September’s elections, after the supreme court upheld a suit brought by a small pro-Kremlin nationalist party, and stripped voters of their last option on the ballot: Yabloko, the country’s only remaining anti-war party.
While often lumped together, Rosebank and Jackdaw are two separate sites, hundreds of miles apart.
Rosebank is a proposed new oilfield 80 miles off the Shetland coast, containing 300 to 500m barrels of oil. It’s the UK’s last major undeveloped oil site. There is also gas at Rosebank, equating to roughly 1% of current demand.
Jackdaw is a gasfield 150 miles east of Aberdeen. If operational, it could probably produce approximately 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (bpd), which at peak is equivalent to 6% of the UK’s North Sea gas supply. Jackdaw could displace 2% of the UK’s imports of gas over its nine- to 12-year lifetime.
Under UK law, all oil and gas under the ground or seabed is owned by the state. It’s our collective asset. The government then dishes out licences for exploration and extraction of these fossil fuels to business. Often, these have complicated structures.
Shell holds the licence to extract at Jackdaw. Rosebank is majority owned by Adura, a joint venture between Shell and Equinor (mostly owned by the Norwegian state). A minority stake of Rosebank is owned by UK-based Ithaca Energy, a subsidiary of the Israeli energy conglomerate Delek Group. Delek operates in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The case for drilling – and the holes in it