The UK has rapidly decarbonised its energy sector, with emissions falling by about 54% since 1990. Fossil fuels supply only around a third of our electricity, but when it comes to the total energy mix – including heating, transport etc – we still rely heavily on oil and gas: they accounted for 74% of the total in 2024 (36.5% oil; 37.5% gas). And the nation is producing less of both than it once did.
In 1999, when production peaked on the UK Continental Shelf, Britain was a net exporter of oil, and was self-sufficient in gas. Today, only about 50% of UK oil comes from domestic sources; some 30% of the UK’s natural gas also comes from domestic sources. Whereas, of the imports: 76% of imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) comes from Norway; 17% from the US and about 2% from the Persian Gulf.
Is there much oil and gas left?
The UK Continental Shelf (largely in the North Sea, but also in the Irish Sea) is a mature basin: over the past 60 years, its most accessible oil and gas – about 47.7 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) – has been extracted. Domestic production of oil and gas fell by 76% and 73% respectively between 2000 and 2024. Today there are over 280 active oil and gas fields, but 180 of these are expected to cease production by 2030. Estimates vary as to how much is left.
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According to the energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie, there’s an estimated 2.3 billion BOE of recoverable oil and gas in the North Sea – enough to cover a sixth of the UK’s projected needs until its net-zero target date of 2050. Offshore Energies UK, an industry group, estimates there are around 7.5 billion BOE of oil. The North Sea Transition Authority, the industry regulator, is more cautious: it thinks the North Sea is home to 2.9 billion BOE of “proven and probable reserves” of oil and gas, with an extra 10.8 billion that may or may not be accessible.
How easily could it be recovered?
“Easy oil is over,” says Dr Mark Ireland, a geologist at Newcastle University. “What remains are smaller, sometimes more remote, and often more technically challenging or expensive resources and reserves.”
New exploration competes for investment with more accessible sources of hydrocarbons abroad, so the North Sea’s future depends on relatively high oil and gas prices, tax levels that aren’t too high and investor confidence. At present, a headline 78% tax rate and high costs mean British oil fields need global prices at nearly $40 (£29) a barrel just to break even, more than twice the threshold for Norway.
There are undeveloped fields, where oil or gas are confirmed but not yet produced. Furthest along is Jackdaw gas field, which could be connected to the UK within months; but that and Rosebank have not been approved.
Could more drilling lower prices?
Probably not. Oil and gas prices are set on international markets; and given the North Sea’s relatively small reserves, drilling there would not impact global prices. Nigel Topping, chair of the Climate Change Committee, says the best way to bring down bills is by “making clean electricity cheaper and reducing demand for oil and gas – not doubling down on declining resources”. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero wants to get Britain off “the roller-coaster of fossil fuel prices and onto homegrown power that we control”.
But might it be useful in other ways?
Yes. Advocates of further exploration point out that it would improve energy security: gas is pumped straight into the UK’s energy system, which insulates the nation from energy shocks, and potentially from price spikes such as the present one. Crucially, they point out, companies licensed to extract North Sea oil and gas would pay billions in tax – money that could be used, for instance, to lower domestic energy bills. (The industry has paid between £4.5 billion and £9 billion in annual tax in recent years.)
Domestic production is good for the balance of payments, too: the UK spent £36 billion on oil and gas imports in 2024, money lost to the British economy. And jobs are at stake. In the past decade, the North Sea workforce has shrunk from 450,000 to 160,000; the hope that jobs would be created in renewable energy to replace them has not yet been borne out.
Wouldn’t more drilling undermine our climate policies?
On the face of it, yes. Over the Jackdaw field’s lifetime, if you include both “operational” and “downstream” emissions (those caused by burning the gas), it will generate the equivalent of 35.8 million tonnes of carbon – nearly Scotland’s total emissions per year.
On the other hand, realistically, Britain is going to need a lot of oil and gas even if it does reach net zero by 2050, for domestic heating, transport – and to back up intermittent wind and solar. Shell, which owns Jackdaw, argues that “the UK will consume this gas, wherever it is produced” – and imported LNG from the US and Qatar is about a fifth more carbon intensive. Thus, arguably, domestic production can help reduce overall emissions.
So what should we do?
Opinion is divided. Reform UK, the Conservatives and most recently the SNP have all backed further drilling in the North Sea. Even Tara Singh, CEO of RenewableUK, the trade association for renewable power, has argued that the UK should continue, and even increase, North Sea gas production for energy security during the transition to net zero, to reduce imports. But Labour's 2024 election manifesto explicitly ruled out issuing new oil and gas exploration licences, although it does allow “tiebacks” for existing fields. (The Lib Dems and the Greens are also opposed.) The Energy Secretary Ed Miliband argues that Britain should show “climate leadership”, and that if it were to allow more licences and more drilling, it would undermine efforts to slow global warming and to move to low-carbon energy sources.