Government launches consultation on future of North Sea: comment

"The North Sea has a positive future shaped around offshore wind but supply chains need to be ramped up to ensure that people and communities that rely on jobs in the North Sea can benefit. A recent report [2] found that the number of jobs in the North Sea could grow by a fifth if the transition is well managed, and around 80% of these jobs would require a skill set similar to those working in oil and gas today.

“Calls for new oil and gas exploration licences in the North Sea to bolster energy security are barking up the wrong tree. The oil and gas extracted from North Sea fields is owned by the companies that get it out of the ground, and sold to the highest bidder on international markets, meaning new drilling won’t bring domestic prices down. Our reliance on gas has resulted in the UK being worst hit by the gas crisis of any Western European country [3], and anyone who's paid a gas bill over the course of the last few years knows the price of this over dependence - the UK has spent £140bn on wholesale gas alone during the crisis [4]. 

“Energy independence, economic growth and job security will come from reducing gas demand as we build out more renewables and replace gas boilers, which will increasingly get their gas from abroad as the North Sea continues its inevitable decline, with electric heating."