The UK climate minister, Graham Stuart, has urged Britons to support domestic drilling for oil and gas, which he claimed were green policies that would help the country reach net zero by 2050.
Do his assertions reflect reality?
The UK produces ‘some of the greenest oil and gas in the world’
In the pecking order of what is claimed as “green” oil production, Saudia Arabia comes out on top. A 2018 study found its oilfields had among the lowest greenhouse gas emissions in the world because the kingdom had enormous oil reserves that were easy to tap and infrastructure in place to transport and refine large volumes of crude, combined with easy export access to the east and the west.
Analysis from Rystad Energy suggests UK oil rigs are among the highest carbon emitters in Europe. CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere from extracting North Sea oil and gas reached 13.1MM metric tonnes in the UK in 2019, or 21kg of carbon dioxide for every barrel of oil produced – far greater than the Norwegian North Sea, which produced 4MM metric tonnes of CO2 in 2019, or 8kg of CO2 a barrel.
Producing oil and gas domestically creates only half the emissions around production and transportation, compared with importing it
Stuart did not reference this data but was probably pointing to a report by the North Sea Transition Authority that showed gas extracted in the UK continental shelf had an average emission intensity of 22kg of carbon dioxide equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent (CO2e/boe); whereas imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) had a significantly higher average intensity of 59kg CO2e/boe.
The higher emissions are mostly caused by the process of liquefaction, combined with the emissions produced by the transportation and regasification of the LNG once in the UK.
However, the analysis also said importing gas via pipeline, particularly from Norway, where oil producers run their rigs on renewable energy, produces an even lower average than UK production, of 18kg CO2e/boe. The UK currently imports 38% of its gas from Norway and produces 45% domestically.
Oil and gas producers in the North Sea have developed technologies to minimise flaring, which they are exporting to other parts of the world
Flaring – the burning of natural gas associated with oil extraction to dispose of it – is wasteful, polluting and emits methane, which is 84 times more powerful in trapping heat than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period and has caused about 30% of global heating to date.
The Norwegians banned flaring almost 50 years ago but the UK oil and gas authority still allows flaring in the North Sea by companies such as Shell and BP. Stuart is correct that the companies have targets to reduce flaring, and a Rystad Energy report said flaring in the UK North Sea fell by 19% in 2021, according to the authority, with a 22% decrease reported so far in 2022.
However, flaring still takes place. The rate of flaring on the UK continental shelf is 11 times higher than in Norway and twice the North Sea average, according to the consultancy Capterio. In 2019, the UK’s oil and gas regulator said the industry burned off more than 40bn cubic feet of gas, enough to meet the needs of about 1m UK households.
The UK is playing a leading role in the transition from fossil fuels
The UK has indeed played a leading role in the transition towards net zero. But that could be thrown away with the new rush for oil, according to John Gummer, the government’s climate change adviser. He said new oil and gas extraction risked undermining the credibility of the UK’s global leadership on climate changes.
“We are very concerned about the signalling impact,” said Gummer, also known as Lord Deben, adding that putting “an end to UK exploration would send a clear signal to the rest of the world that we really are serious about [limiting global warming to] 1.5C”.
Chris Stark, the chief executive of the Climate Change Committee, warned that pursuing new oil and gas extraction could weaken UK diplomacy to encourage other countries to adopt ambitious climate policies. It would also inevitably grow the global market for fossil fuels.
Arguably the new oil and gas extraction licences released in the UK mean other countries are now leading the transition to net zero, with Denmark, Ireland and France putting an end to new oil and gas exploration.
