Jackdaw approved. Rosebank?

The UK government has just approved Jackdaw, a new North Sea gas field owned and operated by Adura, a joint venture between Shell and Equinor. It is now poised to make a decision on Adura’s huge Rosebank oil field – widely seen as the defining test of this government’s commitment to tackling climate change.

As climate impacts escalate around the world, and with UK energy bills set to soar this winter, this briefing looks at what these decisions mean for our energy bills and security, the future of the industry and our climate.

In brief

• Jackdaw, a relatively small gas field, would have no meaningful impact on the UK’s energy security, providing just 2% of UK gas demand over its roughly 10 year lifetime. 
• It will also have no impact on our energy bills, which have risen as a result of the increase in wholesale gas prices, driven by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
• Largely unmanned and remotely operated, Jackdaw won’t stop the decline in North Sea jobs, which have more than halved over the past decade as the basin matures. 
• No new oil and gas fields are compatible with safe climate limits – existing global oil and gas reserves already far exceed what can be safely burned. If approved, the huge Rosebank oil field would release emissions equal to 70% of the UK's annual total, making it incompatible with the UK’s climate commitments and the defining test of this government’s credibility on climate change.
  
  

Jackdaw will make no meaningful difference to UK energy security

Jackdaw is a relatively small field that will do next to nothing to reduce the UK’s dependence on gas imports. Even in the most optimistic scenario and assuming none of its gas is exported, its reserves would provide just 2% of UK annual gas demand on average over its roughly 10-year lifetime. Put another way, Jackdaw’s gas would, on its own, power the UK for just over two months at current levels of demand. 

After 50 years of drilling, the UK has burned most of its gas. Official projections show that the UK’s reliance on imports is set to rise from around 55% today to more than two-thirds dependent by 2030, and over 90% dependent on gas imports by 2050 – even if new fields are developed. Most of what’s left in the basin is oil, the vast majority of which is exported. 

Jackdaw will not lower energy bills  

With prices set on international markets, Jackdaw would make no difference to UK energy bills  – a fact that advocates of more drilling have publicly admitted.

UK energy bills are being driven higher by rising wholesale gas prices, as a result of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. The last energy crisis, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that sent gas prices soaring, cost the UK more than £180 billion over four years and pushed millions of households into fuel poverty. 

To lower energy costs long term, the UK needs to reduce its reliance on gas through switching to renewable energy. The UK’s offshore wind farms and solar installations are already replacing gas in the system and helping to hold down electricity prices; in one month alone this year, wind and solar saved the UK from gas imports worth £1bn.  

Jackdaw won’t stem the decline of North Sea jobs

‍Jackdaw will not stop the decline in the North Sea workforce, which has seen jobs supported by the industry more than halve in the past decade, despite new field approvals.

Jackdaw will be largely unmanned and operated remotely – with the gas piped back to an existing field. The link between output and jobs has broken: North Sea production rose by a fifth between 2014 and 2019, while employment in Aberdeen’s oil and gas sector fell by 11%, suggesting that more production no longer means more jobs.

With the North Sea in terminal decline, building the UK’s new clean energy system is how we reindustrialise regions. That means the hard work, dodged by successive governments, of upgrading the UK’s manufacturing capacity and supply chains to make the wind turbines and other technologies we’re going to need, and properly supporting the oil and gas workforce into new jobs. 

UK gas production is not better for the environment than imports 

The claim that domestic gas production is “better for the climate” than imports is extremely misleading. It compares UK oil and gas to the very dirtiest gas imports (LNG) which make up a minority of the UK’s overall imports.

The overwhelming majority of the UK’s gas imports (69% in 2025) come via pipeline from Norway, where gas production is almost four times less polluting, or emissions-intensive, than UK gas production. Norway halted practices like emergency flaring of gas decades ago, whereas it currently still takes place in the UK.

These comparisons also tell us only how polluting the gas was to produce. Once it’s burned, the differences are negligible: when taking into account the emissions from combusting the gas, North Sea gas emissions are only about 15% lower than LNG.

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New oil and gas fields are incompatible with safe climate limits

‍The science shows that existing and approved global oil and gas reserves already far exceed what can be safely burned in a world committed to limiting warming to 1.5°C. In short, we cannot afford to burn the reserves we already have, let alone develop new ones.

No new oil and gas fields are compatible with safe climate thresholds. But while Jackdaw will emit over 35 million tonnes of CO2e, burning the reserves in the huge Rosebank oil field would release over 250 million tonnes of CO2e. That’s the equivalent of 70% of the UK's entire annual emissions in 2025.

A field on the scale of Rosebank is fundamentally incompatible with any credible pathway to 1.5°C and the UK’s commitments under the Paris Agreement. It is the defining test of this Labour government’s credibility on climate change.

We are already seeing the devastating impacts of rising global temperatures. The severe heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires impacting the UK this summer, as well as increasingly extreme weather around the world, demonstrate how rapidly climate risk escalates with every fraction of a degree. It would be irresponsible in the extreme for the UK government to knowingly add to these impacts by sanctioning Rosebank. 

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Uplift media contact: media@upliftuk.org

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