Further oil and gas exploration licences granted: comment
North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) has offered a further 31 licences in the latest phase of the 33rd oil and gas licensing round
By George Smeeton
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Jess Ralston, Energy Analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) said:
“Flying in the face of advice from experts like the International Energy Agency and United Nations, who have said that reducing demand is the way to energy independence, new North Sea licenses won’t help to lower bills because the oil and gas will be sold to the highest bidder by the companies that get it out of the ground.
“We can’t control prices set by volatile international markets, so to shield ourselves from another gas crisis in future it’s clear we’ll have to reduce our demand for it. Yet the Government fumbled the last renewables auction round, which could have saved us 22x times the amount of gas that could be produced from new North Sea licences by displacing gas power stations. [2]
“Renewables could do so much more to boost UK energy security than North Sea oil and gas and yet the government continues to push its new licenses Bill that the oil and gas regulator itself has said is "unnecessary". The ’energy patriotic’ thing to do is to insulate private rented homes, deploy electric heat pumps and EVs that run on British renewables [3], but instead the Government has U-turned on these policies. As things stand the UK is going backwards on its energy security.”
Notes to editors:
1. NSTA: 31 more licences offered in final set of 33rd round awards: https://www.nstauthority.co.uk/media/5jajkdt2/33rd-round-futher-details-3-may-2024.pdf
2. Year on from Government’s energy security strategy, UK less energy secure – analysis: https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2024/year-on-from-governments-energy-security-strategy-uk-less-energy-secure-analysis
3. Net zero homes most ‘energy patriotic’, use less than half the energy imports of gas/petrol households – analysis: https://eciu.net/media/press-releases/2024/net-zero-homes-most-energy-patriotic-use-less-than-half-the-energy-imports-of-gas-petrol-households-analysis
For more information or for interview requests:
George Smeeton, Head of Communications, ECIU, Tel: +44 (0)7894 571 153, email: george.smeeton@eciu.net