Since the first US-Israeli strikes on Tehran on 28 February, around 20 per cent of the world's oil and gas supplies have been effectively blockaded by the Iranian regime's control of the Strait of Hormuz.
This has led to soaring fuel prices, which in turn has led to heated demands by politicians and from some corners of the media for the UK to turn to digging up its own oil and gas from the North Sea.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump, whose decision to attack Iran has led to oil prices reaching highs of almost $120 a barrel, rounded on the British government saying it should "DRILL, BABY, DRILL" to extract fossil fuels from the North Sea.
Nigel Farage's Reform UK party then said that if elected they would aim to extract "every last barrel, every last drop" from the North Sea.
Reform's deputy leader and business and energy spokesman, Richard Tice promised this week that a Reform government would give the go-ahead to the Rosebank and Jackdaw projects in the North Sea.
After 43 days of fuel price rises, warnings that the average UK household will already be almost £500 worse off this year due to the war's impact on energy bills, it is perhaps unsurprising that politicians and the media are calling for action to tackle the problem.
But numerous climate experts have told The Independent drilling the UK's remaining gas and oil reserves won't lower prices or boost energy security, branding it a "total red herring".
There are several reasons why drilling the North Sea won't bring prices down or boost the UK's energy security. Let's go through them:
1. Oil and gas are sold on the open market
Oil and gas drilled from the North Sea are sold by the companies that extract them on the open market which sets global prices. We don't get a discount because it's locally sourced. Furthermore, the amount we could produce is “trivial”, according to Bob Ward from LSE's Grantham Research Institute, meaning it would “make no difference to the global price".
Professor Gavin Bridge, Fellow of the Durham Energy Institute and UK Energy Research Centre Researcher, agreed. He told The Independent: "More drilling in the North Sea will not bring energy costs down for British consumers. The UK is not an isolated energy island where new supply has the effect of decreasing prices. The prices we pay in the UK for oil and gas are driven by international markets regardless of whether it is extracted from the UK North Sea or somewhere else."
This was also echoed by Dr Anupama Sen, from Oxford University's Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment. She told The Independent: "Oil and gas are priced on international markets, wherever they’re produced – so the idea that more North Sea extraction will bring down bills is misleading."
2. There's hardly any oil and gas left in the North Sea
North Sea oil and gas production peaked during the 1980s and 1990s, and remaining reserves are in increasingly difficult – and therefore more expensive – areas to drill.
Professor Bridge described the North Sea as a "highly mature basin", which is now "in long-term decline".
"It has been drilled for over half a century, so available new supply is now very small relative to overall market demand," he said. "Squeezing additional output from the North Sea will have a negligible impact on prices or the UK cost of living."
The two oilfields which Reform have said they would immediately licence – Rosebank and Jackdaw – are also relatively small, even by North Sea standards.
Robert Gross, professor of energy policy at Imperial, and director of the UK Energy Research Centre, told The Independent: "Neither field is large, either in relation to UK demand or historical production from the UK North Sea. Jackdaw could eventually produce about 6 per cent of UK gas production (3 per cent of total UK gas demand)."
Meanwhile, Rosebank is also on the petite side. According to LSE's Mr Ward, "Rosebank, at peak, will increase by less than 2 per cent current daily UK gas output ... They're just too small to make any difference to international prices."
Any oversupply of UK‑produced gas wouldn’t lower prices because it wouldn’t be stored here; instead, Professor Gross said it would simply flow out through interconnectors as increased North Sea exports. Since the UK relies on two‑way gas movement with Europe due to having very little gas storage, trying to hold gas back would undermine energy security, making claims that more drilling could transform prices a “total red herring.”
3. Gas sets the price of UK electricity as it's the most expensive form of energy
Gas is the primary driver of high UK energy prices – it is the most expensive form of energy, and we still rely heavily on it.
Around 30 per cent of the nation’s electricity comes from gas‑fired power stations – far more than Germany’s 17 per cent or France’s three per cent – and more than 70 per cent of British homes rely on it for heating, and many for cooking as well.
High bills are partly driven by the UK’s “marginal pricing model”, which means that electricity prices are almost entirely dictated by gas prices.
This increasingly controversial system means the costliest power source needed at any given moment – which is almost always gas – sets the price for all electricity on the grid, even when cheaper renewables are supplying the majority of the power. With gas determining the market price around 98 per cent of the time, household bills in Britain are acutely exposed to swings in global gas markets.
Do people actually want the North Sea to be drilled?
Durham University's Professor Bridge said it is vital to recognise that while some fossil fuel champions may be calling for the North Sea to be drilled, it does not necessarily reflect broader desire among the public for such action.
He told The Independent: "Plenty of people are not calling for this. That loud voices are pushing now for more oil and gas says more about the state of British politics than it does about sound energy policy.”
The Tony Blair Institute recently came under fire after suggesting the Labour government's approach to energy concerns failed to include greater provision of North Sea fossil fuels.
In an email to The Independent, the organisation's energy policy expert, Tone Langengen, said the former PM's think tank recognised that "North Sea drilling won’t directly reduce household bills", because prices are set on global markets, but added: "As long as the UK still relies on oil and gas for around 70 per cent of its energy, producing more at home reduces exposure to the most volatile imports – especially LNG – while supporting revenues for the exchequer and strengthening our energy security."
But the Grantham Institute's Mr Ward warned against the argument that exploiting fossil fuels was good for the economy of the country.
"If you add up the amount of tax that the treasury has received from the increased rate of taxation through the energy profits levy – 78 per cent – it's still less than half of the £44bn the government had to spend in 2022/23 helping consumers with the high price of energy."
He added: "Our dependence on fossil fuels is actually bad for our economy because the costs are so high."
The UK has a poor track record on managing fossil fuel revenues. During the peak of North Sea oil production in the 1980s and 90s, the UK government spent oil tax revenues to fund day-to-day government spending, cut national borrowing, and fund tax cuts, rather than saving it.
Meanwhile, Norway created what has become one of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, which ironically the UK, which did not establish a long-term investment vehicle for saving for the future, now actually contributes to through buying gas from Norway.
Don't forget the climate crisis
While keen to lay out the economic futility of drilling the North Sea for small amounts of oil and gas, the experts The Independent spoke to also spoke about the need to leave fossil fuels in the ground as the climate crisis worsens and clean energy targets become existential considerations.
"Climate change can’t be ignored or willed away," said Professor Bridge. "The scientific, economic and moral case for increasing renewables and reducing the extraction and burning of fossil fuels is clear. That the oil and gas industry leverages geopolitical events and high prices to promote their interests is not surprising. What’s disappointing is to see these claims dressed up by others as being in the national interest."
Mr Ward echoed these concerns, and made the case that the UK should show climate leadership by moving away from fossil fuel consumption: "The main reason we shouldn't be drilling in the North Sea is that we already have more oil and gas reserves around the world that can possibly be burnt and stay within our climate targets.
"We are not going to be able to persuade other countries to leave their fossil fuels in the ground if we are trying to max out [ours], let alone the fact that it's not actually going to reduce prices and will make very little difference to our security. So there's no real benefit to any more drilling."
Oxford University’s Dr Sen said: "If we are serious about cutting energy costs, the real gains lie in investing in renewables, storage and electrification, and in fixing a system that continues to expose households to volatile global gas prices.”
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