MOST North Sea oil and gas companies are failing to invest in renewables and most will not spend anything on green energy by 2030, new research has suggested.
Data analysis by Uplift – which supports efforts for a rapid and fair transition away from fossil fuels – found nearly three-quarters of offshore oil and gas companies in the UK plan to invest solely in oil and gas between now and 2030, while just 8% will invest in renewables.
The organisation said this undermines the industry’s claims to be driving the UK’s energy transition.
The analysis of industry investment data showed that just seven out of 87 North Sea companies plan to invest anything in renewable energy projects in the next five years.
Since 2015, just six offshore oil and gas companies have invested anything in UK renewable energy projects, according to the research.
Tessa Khan, executive director at Uplift said: “The oil and gas industry is clearly failing to deliver on its promises.
“The overwhelming majority of North Sea operators have no intention of investing in clean energy and are solely interested in profiting from oil and gas for as long as the North Sea’s dwindling reserves allow.
“Yet the industry continues to position itself as a major partner in the UK’s energy transition – a fiction that, to this point, has allowed it to play a pivotal role in determining the shape and pace of the North Sea’s transition.
“This pretence is leading to real world consequences for supply chain firms, oil and gas workers and the communities they support.
Only two of the seven oil and gas companies that plan to invest in renewables between now and 2030 will transition their investment portfolios to "majority" (more than 50%) renewable energy projects by this date.
One of the seven plans to invest in wind energy purely to power further oil and gas production.
Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie told The National: “The transition to a greener future can’t happen without a major and irreversible effort from governments and business.
“The cost of inaction is far too severe, and if the climate crisis has shown us anything it’s that we can’t rely on the fossil fuel giants to do the right thing by themselves, not when they have a long and shameful history of doing the exact opposite.
“Time and again, the oil and gas companies have shown us that the only thing they care about is profit, regardless of the consequences for the world around us and for future generations. We can’t let them drag us even further into climate breakdown.
“Scotland has an abundance of green resources that any country would envy. We need an immediate end to all new drilling operations in our North Sea, a rapid ramping up of investment in renewable alternatives and far stricter regulations of a climate-busting sector that has already done decades of damage.”
By 2030, it is predicted that renewable energy will account for almost two thirds (63%) of investment in the UK’s energy transition, but oil and gas operators will account for just 10% of this spending.
The 2021 North Sea Transition Deal, a voluntary agreement between UK Government and the oil and gas industry, promises to “unlock the UK’s net zero ambition, delivering part of a fair and equitable energy transition” through, for example, investment in hydrogen and carbon capture, utilisation and storage.
According to the analysis, however, just 13% of North Sea oil and gas producers intend to invest in any “low carbon” technologies.
