The head of the UK’s national green energy champion has joined other high-profile renewable energy leaders in making the case for more North Sea oil and gas production as the government braces for an energy cost crisis.
The GB Energy boss, Jürgen Maier, used a social media post on LinkedIn to reject the claim that more North Sea oil and gas could help to bring down energy costs, which have soared as the war in Iran has escalated.
But he argued that an increase in North Sea production could bring a string of economic benefits to the UK, including more jobs and higher tax revenues. Based on these economic benefits, he said he was “a supporter” of a well-managed energy transition including “all energy”.
Maier later clarified in a separate post that he was “fully supportive” of the government’s ban on exploration licences for new oil and gasfields.
He said the government’s plan to use existing fields and tiebacks – which allow new deposits of oil or gas to be extracted if they can be reached from existing infrastructure – for their lifetime was “consistent with an ‘All Energy’ approach to the transition” that would “give the supply chain companies enough time to transition” while renewables remained the “end game”.
The comments follow backing for more North Sea oil and gas production from other high-profile green energy leaders, including the Octopus Energy boss, Greg Jackson, and the new chief executive of RenewableUK, Tara Singh.
Singh used an editorial in the Daily Telegraph last week to argue that Britain should produce more energy “of every kind”, saying it was time “to take energy out of the culture wars”.
Jackson, who joined the Cabinet Office board last year, told the same newspaper that the UK “needs more sovereign energy”, which would require “practical, pragmatic decisions”.
“Ideology, wishful thinking, nostalgia and culture wars don’t provide actual solutions. We should use what’s available from the North Sea,” Jackson said. “While the price is set globally, there’s no point shipping gas from the other side of the world when we have it here.”
Miliband has ruled out new licences for the ageing fossil fuel basin, but officials and ministers are still considering whether to approve the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields, which were granted licences under the previous government.
.
Senior figures in the North Sea industry expect the fields to be given the go-ahead within the coming weeks, and claim they could begin producing fossil fuels by the end of the year. This outcome would be likely to provoke an outcry from green groups that have campaigned against the fields for years.
One industry source suggested that the go-ahead may come after the local elections in May to avoid creating a dividing line between Labour and the Green party, which has become increasingly popular among leftwing voters.
The government this week dismissed a warning from the energy trade body Offshore Energies UK that failing to produce more homegrown North Sea oil and gas would leave the UK increasingly reliant on imports at a time of rising global instability.
The war in the Middle East, which has entered its fourth week, has triggered the biggest oil and gas supply shock in the history of the market and caused UK gas prices to more than double in under a month.
But the industry’s call for more support to help slow the decline of the North Sea as a provider of energy was rebuffed. A government spokesperson said: “Issuing new licences to explore new fields cannot give us energy security and will not take a penny off bills.”
They added: “Regardless of where it comes from, oil and gas is sold on international markets, which set the price for British billpayers – making us a price taker. The only way to truly protect ourselves from these price spikes is to get off the rollercoaster of fossil fuel markets.”
A Great British Energy spokesperson said: “Great British Energy are focussed on driving the clean energy transition which will deliver a more secure and independent energy system for the UK.
“The energy transition is a managed one and oil and gas will continue to be part of our energy mix for decades to come. It is vital that the world class knowledge and skills of oil and gas workers and supply chains, which are crucial for a clean energy future, are not lost.
“We are working towards a prosperous energy future, where the benefits are felt by communities across the UK, especially in the north east of Scotland.”
