Photo: Angela Christofilou
By Lauren MacDonald
Despite what the oil and gas industry might have us believe, Rosebank is a bad deal for the UK. This massive oil field off the Shetland coast, the UK’s biggest untapped field, would do nothing to lower our energy bills or boost our energy supplies. Instead, all it would do is line the pockets of Norway’s oil fund, while producing enormous amounts of pollution.
And, to top it off, thanks to generous tax breaks, the UK taxpayer would be expected to bear most of the costs of developing Rosebank. As I say, a really bad deal for the UK public.
So where are we with Rosebank now?
Last year, Rosebank’s 2023 approval was ruled unlawful by the Scottish Court of Session. Why? Because it failed to take into account the biggest climate impact of the project: the huge amounts of pollution that would be released when its oil is burned.
The positive decision was brought about by the landmark ‘Finch’ Supreme Court ruling, which has also forced the UK government to change the rules for assessing new oil and gas projects so that companies finally have to account for the emissions that would result from burning the fossil fuels they plan to extract.
The changes impact the future of Rosebank. Right now, we’re waiting for its majority owner – Equinor – to resubmit its application under the new rules.
When they do, the full scale of the climate harm this project will cause will be plain to see.
Rosebank Will Keep Our Bills High
Let’s be crystal clear: Rosebank will do nothing to bring down our energy bills. The oil from this field is not for us. Even Equinor has said most of its reserves will be exported and sold internationally. So the UK public would shoulder most of the financial risk, our seas would suffer the environmental damage, it would trash our climate reputation, but we’d get nothing from it.
The tiny bit of gas that Rosebank contains would make no difference to UK gas supplies: it has the potential to reduce the amount of gas we import every year by just 1% on average – and that is if none of it is exported. Such minimal amounts of gas, the price of which is anyway set on international markets, means it would have no impact on our energy bills.
New drilling in the North Sea won’t shield us from price spikes – it just locks us into a volatile energy source that has in recent years become unaffordable for millions of people. The only way to bring down bills for good is to get off gas, through renewables and insulating homes.
The UK Public Would (Effectively) Foot the Bill for Rosebank
It gets worse. Not only would Rosebank fail to help with bills, UK taxpayers would actually pay most of the costs of developing it. Generous tax breaks mean the UK public would shoulder over 80% of the costs – and the vast majority of risk – from developing Rosebank.
This means that while Equinor is set to make billions in profit from Rosebank, the Treasury could be looking at a net loss of over £250 million from Rosebank (if the price of oil stays around the $70 mark and even more if the price of oil drops). In short, Norwegian families and pensioners, who already benefit from an oil fund worth $1.3 trillion, would get even richer from Rosebank, while it would bring no tax benefit to the UK.
A Massive Climate Threat
Rosebank is a climate disaster in the making. If it goes ahead, the climate pollution from burning its oil would be greater than the amount that all 28 of the world’s lowest-income countries produce in a year. That’s a staggering amount of harm from a single project.
Thanks to the new rules that force companies to reveal these emissions, the government can no longer ignore this. It will show that Rosebank is completely incompatible with our climate commitments. There is simply no room for new oil and gas projects if we want a liveable future. We already have enough reserves in existing fields around the world to overshoot — by some margin — the 1.5°C temperature limit governments have signed up to in the Paris Agreement.
Every new project pushes us further into climate breakdown. More heatwaves and wildfires. More floods and droughts, driving up food prices. More extreme weather that hits the poorest first and worst. It’s not just about CO2 emissions on a spreadsheet — it’s about the real, everyday impacts people are already living with, here in the UK and around the world.
Don’t Fall for the Net Zero Misinformation
Recently, we’ve seen a lot of dangerous misinformation — including from some politicians — claiming that net zero is to blame for high energy bills. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
What’s really driving bills up? The high price of gas and the enormous profits made by oil and gas companies. Most people have clocked the connection between their soaring energy bills and the obscene amounts of money these companies have made in recent years. Net zero isn’t the problem. It’s the solution. A properly funded rollout of homegrown renewables and upgrading homes with insulation and clean heating systems would slash bills and protect households from fossil fuel price shocks.
Where We Go From Here
This UK government has promised to get us off gas to bring down bills and has ambitious plans to roll out more renewables and insulate homes. It now needs to make sure we’re not locked into fossil fuels longer than is necessary.
Rosebank is the first real test of whether this government is serious about protecting people from worsening climate impacts and rising bills. It cannot pass that test if it approves this field.
We can have an energy system that is more affordable, fairer and that doesn’t make things worse for younger generations. But to get there, we need to stop new drilling.
Lauren MacDonald is Lead Campaigner at Stop Rosebank
