July 18, 2026

expert reaction to reports Andy Burnham will allow North Sea oil and gas drilling

Scientists comment on reports that incoming Prime Minister Andy Burnham will allow North Sea oil and gas drilling.

Prof Jon Gluyas, Emeritus Chair in Geoenergy Carbon Capture & Storage at Durham University, said:

“The popular for and against arguments for continued exploration, appraisal, development and production of oil and gas from the North Sea and other parts of the UK’s Continental Shelf are both, for the most part, a long way from reality. Ceasing to develop and produce North Sea oil and gas will not reduce the nations carbon emissions because, so long as it is less costly than low carbon fuels, we will import oil and gas.  On the flip side, continued exploration for oil and gas in the North Sea will do nothing to improve the nation’s energy security in the short or medium term and it will do nothing to lessen prices for consumers because it would take upwards of 10 years to licence an area, explore for, discover, appraise and develop a new field even supposing we could attract exploration companies back into a high-cost environment and such companies were lucky enough to find a commercially attractive field in what is a mature basin.

“The stories for oil and gas differ in some important aspects.  Oil is sold on the international market.  The UK would gain from being able to produce more and sell more so improving our balance of payments and the continued loss of jobs in the sector would ease a little.  However, the UK has no control over oil prices.  Gas is sold on a regional market with partial global connectivity via shipped liquified natural gas (LNG).  Gas, so critical to the UK domestic and power generation markets, comes from four sources.About 40% is from domestic production.  A further 40% is via the Langaled pipeline from a single field offshore Norway (Ormen Lange).  A tiny quantity comes via pipeline from the Low Countries (the pipeline was built originally for the UK to export its gas) and the rest is shipped in as LNG.The LNG market is highly volatile and it is this market which saw the big price hike when Ukraine was invaded.  LNG is also highly polluting through the liquification and shipping process – though emissions from these processes do not go to the UK’s account!

“What can we do?  The UK can better exploit existing producing fields.  For most oilfields, less than 50% of the oil is recovered; it’s rather better for gas – maybe as high as 90% for a few fields.  This means, however, that there are high amounts of oil and gas that could still be produced and such production could be improved by injection of the CO2 we need to stop putting into the atmosphere.  Experience in Texas since the 1970s has shown that for every tonne of CO2 injected around 2-3 extra barrels of oil can be produced and, because CO2 is being injected, the net carbon footprint can get quite close to zero.  A similar argument exists for gas fields.

“The above is a partial solution to meeting our energy needs and reducing our carbon footprint but it is temporary.  Continued development of electricity generated by wind and PV panels is an imperative and we need to add to that better use of heat, solar heat, waste heat and in particular heat from the Earth – geothermal heat.  The geothermal energy resource in the UK is essentially inexhaustible but we use almost none.  We could displace all gas-fired heating with geothermal energy and recent work by the UK National Geothermal Centre has shown that displacing LNG with secure, home produced geothermal energy would massively improve our balance of payments, create high skilled jobs, reduce carbon emissions substantially, deliver clean air uncontaminated by gas combustion producers and as a result improve societal health.”

Prof Myles Allen FRS, Head of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, University of Oxford, said:

“Andy Burnham has a choice: simply allow new licenses, or make them conditional on Ithaca, Shell and Equinor starting to dispose permanently of a small but rising fraction of the carbon dioxide those licenses will generate.

“Option 1 would make it seem like Reform was right all along. Option 2 would make climate history: the first time any government has held the industry responsible for stopping the products they sell from causing global warming — and those jobs in carbon dioxide disposal will be there long after the oil and gas has run out.”

Declared interests

Jon Gluyas: “I am a founder of the UK National Geothermal Centre.”

For all other experts, no reply to our request for DOIs was received.