James Cook
Scottish publisher, BBC News
Bbc
A worker inside the Brackdaw gas platform in Shell in the Aker court in Verdal, Norway
A court ruled that the consent of two new fields of Scottish oil and gas has been granted illegally and that their owners must request new approval from the British government before the drilling can begin.
The written judgment on the fields of Rosebank and Jackdaw came after a case filed by environmental activists, Uplift and Greenpeace, at the Session Court in Edinburgh.
In his judgment, Lord Ericht said that a more detailed assessment of the environmental impact of the fields was necessary, taking into account the effect on the climate of burning the extracted fossil fuels.
He said work on both fields could continue while the new information was collected, but no oil and gas could be extracted unless from the new approval.
Shell’s Jackdaw’s gas field at the North Sea was initially approved by the previous British conservative government and the industry regulator in the summer of 2022.
The authorization to develop rosebank oil, 80 miles west of Shetland in the North Atlantic, was granted in the fall of 2023.
In a 57 -page judgment, Lord Ericht wrote that there was a public interest in having the decision “redone on a lawful basis” due to the effects of climate change – which, according to him, prevailed over the interests of developers.
Map showing the gas and jackdaw gas fields
Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift, praised the decision as “common sense” and said that the government should now refuse the approval of the two projects.
“Climate science is clear that we cannot create new fields of oil and gas if we want to stay in safe climatic thresholds,” she said.
The companies involved insist that their projects are essential for British energy security and should be allowed to continue.
Rosebank contains around 300 to 500 million barrels of oil, making it the largest unexploited field known to British waters.
The Norwegian state energy giant Equinor has an 80% stake in Rosebank with Ithaca Energy, based in Aberdeen, with the rest.
The plan was that oil was removed by the oil tanker and sold on the international market, with gas with Shetland.
Production was to start in Jackdaw in 2026 and Rosebank in 2026/27.
See Images of drones from the Jackdaw gas platform under construction
As part of the initial consent process, environmental impact assessments were carried out to identify, describe and assess the “direct and indirect effects” of projects.
These evaluations have taken into account the emissions generated by the process of extraction of oil and gas, but not the greenhouse gases which would be released when these fossil fuels were finally burned – called “downstream” emissions or “Scope 3”.
But last June, in a dispute on the oil wells near Gatwick airport in London, the British Supreme Court ruled that the evaluations of the environmental impact should also include downstream emissions.
Now Lord Ericht has judged that the decision in this case – Finch C Surey County Council – should be retrospectively applied to Rosebank and Jackdaw.
Consequently, the energy secretary Ed Miliband and the regulator, the North SEA Transition Authority (formerly known as Oil and Gas Authority), must reconsider whether or not to grant its consent, taking into account these emotional emissions.
Charlie Kronick, from Greenpeace, said that the granting of approval would be incompatible to achieve the national and international objectives of the United Kingdom to reduce carbon emissions.
“There is no way that we can achieve these objectives by approving new oil and gas,” he said.
Oil companies insist that there will always be an domestic demand for fossil fuels, whether or not it is produced in British waters, arguing that the import of gas would produce higher emissions.
The British government considered how to calculate the programs downstream, and a consultation on the subject had been due in the spring.
In a press release, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero said that the consultation was now over and that it responded “as soon as possible … to ensure the stability of the industry, support the investment, protect the jobs and provide economic growth “.
“Our priority,” said the press release, “is to provide an equitable, orderly and prosperous transition to the North Sea in accordance with our climate and legal obligations, which is heading for our own energy safety future, lower bills And good, long -term jobs.
A Shell spokesperson said Swift Action was necessary for the government to grant new approval for Jackdaw, adding: “Today’s decision rightly allows work to progress on this energy project that imported into the national scale while new consents are sought. “
Equinor said he had hosted the decision and promised to continue working closely with the government to progress it.
“Rosebank is essential for the economic growth of the United Kingdom,” said a spokesperson, adding that he was investing 2.2 billion pounds sterling in the project and a break would have meant job losses and a Reduction of tax income for the Treasury.
Shell said the decision would allow work to progress on the project
In court, Shell’s lawyer had argued that the cancellation consent could threaten the overall viability of Jackdaw, not only a cost of the company and its enormous money partners, but also an impact on energy security From the United Kingdom, the transition to renewable energies and the wider economy.
However, Lord Ericht concluded that these are not questions for him, writing: “The question for me is not whether the projects should continue, but if illegal decisions should be retained in a legal manner.”
He also rejected the arguments of the companies they had acted in good faith because the British government had told them that it was not necessary to include downstream emissions in their environmental assessments.
“Shell, Equinor and Ithaca,” wrote Lord Ericht, “knew or should have known at the time that the consents were granted that the law was uncertain.”
Shell has already spent 800 million pounds sterling on the Packdaw, which, according to him, will use “at least 1,000” people between 2023 and 2025, and will represent around 6% of the future production of gas from the North Sea, offering Sufficient energy to heat 1.4 million houses and reducing the need to import energy from abroad.
The platform is currently in a Verdal manufacturing courtyard near Trondheim, Norway and should be raised on a barge and towed in the coming months.
BBC News visited the court earlier this month and saw engineers make final adjustments to a large and complex range of hoses, valves and bright dials.
On a foggy and sweet winter day, the platform was sworn under a giant red and white crane, offering a shiny aluminum heliport and a bright orange lifeline.
The structure to support the platform, known as the jacket, is already on the seabed at 150 miles east of Aberdeen.
Several Norwegians we talked about during our brief visit to Verdal, about 200 miles south of the Arctic Circle, said the weather was remarkably hot for January.
This would not be surprising for climatologists who stressed that Norway is home to some of the fastest places in warming the earth.
Media in Pennsylvania
The ED Miliband Energy Secretary would have uncomfortable as to environmental implications
Last year, before the court, Shell’s lawyer, Christine O’Neill KC, said that the company had accepted that greenhouse gas emissions had contributed to climate change and urgent measures necessary for y tackle.
However, she added: “If, how and to what extent” any individual project contributed to climate change was “complex”.
In his judgment, Lord Ericht wrote: “The effect of the fire of fossil fuels on climate change and the life of individual people is now well recognized in law.”
The judge has now, in fact, withdrew the case outside the judicial arena and in the wild nature of the policy, where the landscape has changed even during the two months which followed verbal arguments in the case in edinburgh .
Republican Donald Trump is now back in the White House promising to “drill, baby, forest” while the Chancellor Rachel Reeves highlights economic growth in relation to environmental concerns while he supports the airport expansion .
There has been speculations that Ed Miliband is uncomfortable with this position, but he did not break the ranks.
On the other hand, the petroleum industry says that it is already faced with difficult conditions due to political uncertainty and high taxation levels, the American firm Apache recently announcing that it would leave the North of the North of the North By the end of 2029.
Given this backdrop, Shell is now considered a pressing government in private for insurance on Jackdaw.
“Adding downstream emissions will add to the evaluation process a new important factor which has not been included in the previous evaluation and could change the result of the evaluation,” wrote Lord Ericht.
If this is the case, that would delight climate activists and would build oil companies, but the initiates of the industry told BBC News that it is more likely that, in the end, the government will allow the Banc de Rose And Jackdaw to take place.
