Let me have another go at explaining to this hopeless government why extracting more of our own oil and gas instead of importing is good for jobs, good for tax revenues and good for the environment. They clearly have not been listening for the last three years as I and others have set this out.
- If we import LNG instead of getting more of our own oil and gas, we sack our North Sea staff and pay the wages of people abroad instead.
- If we produce our own oil and gas the Treasury receives large tax revenues. If we import, foreign governments pocket most of the tax.
- If we use gas by pipe in the UK instead of gas by LNG tanker, we save three quarters of the CO2 created in producing and delivering the gas to the users. It takes a lot of energy to liquefy, transport and convert back to gas which you do not need for gas by pipe.
- There is no world price for gas. US wholesale gas is around 75% cheaper than UK wholesale gas because it is gas down a pipe in the US sold under contract. The UK no longer has enough contract gas to keep the price down. There is a world price for internationally traded LNG and that is usually higher than contract gas to cover all the extra costs.
- Availability of local gas by pipe helps keep open chemical industry plants that use natural gas as a feedstock. The present government is presiding over the collapse of our gas dependent chemical industry.
- Some of our oil production will be exported, but this is much better than just importing more oil. If you import too much overall with no export offsets you need to borrow or sell assets to pay the bills and can end up with a balance of payments crisis.
Kemi Badenoch has rightly called on the government to lift the bans on new exploration and development of known oil and gas reserves. The government should immediately press ahead with the Rosebank and Jackdaw fields. The existing pipes and production platforms in the North Sea have spare capacity which can be used for some of the new developments, speeding up their production and cutting the costs of doing so. Claire Couthino, the Shadow Energy Secretary, gave the go ahead for Rosebank in 2023. It took this Labour government to slow it up and then seek to prevent it altogether.
In 2023 Claire Couthino as Energy Secretary argued that continuing to extract the North Sea’s oil and gas reserves “is important for maintaining domestic security of supply and making the U.K. less vulnerable to a repeat of the energy crisis that caused prices to soar after Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.” She was right to approve Rosebank. It would have helped today if Labour had not introduced a ban.
March 30, 2026
Good for the Balance of Payments as well.Reduce our dreadful deficit on the Trade Balance
March 30, 2026
Preaching to the choir John. Every newspaper, magazine, even trades unions are calling for reopening the North Sea. This appears to entrenched the objections by the idiot Energy Secretary who sees himself as a Colossus standing firm against the baying cowd.
It is ridiculous that a single person can cause so much damage to the country and a Prime Minister who is afraid to reign him in.
As for Badenough and Couthino, we must remember that they allowed Treacherous May to put Net Stupid into law.
Reply Couthino as S. of S changed policy to allow new oil and gas but Labour introduced bans
March 30, 2026
Quite so, this is a topic all of its own and receives nowhere near enough attention, the trade deficit is why we have high inflation, and hence high money cost.
Is it not the case that the price of ‘green electricity’ paid to the windmill owners is based on the cost of gas? So the higher the price of gas the more the windmill owners receive. How this works I don’t know, but perhaps Lord J. can illuminate.
March 30, 2026
Kemi Badenoch will today unveil plans to slash almost £200 off energy bills as she steps up pressure on ministers to lift the ban on new drilling in the North Sea. She doesn’t want to stop there what about fracking and the reserves we have on land as for earthquakes it was minor in Blackpool no more than a large lorry running past your house, funny the tories have changed there tune on drilling could it be that’s a front runner of the Reform party
March 30, 2026
They are deliberately destroying our manufacturing capability; our energy security; food security and defence capability. The original structure of the EEC/EU required the member nations to be inter-dependent on the necessities for war (coal, steel, food) and for the member nations to be controlled by a “higher authority” … the EU Bureaucrats, safely immune from democracy.
They are still pursuing that objective: just substitute “coal” for energy. We are technically out of the EU, but we are still significantly controlled by them and the Establishment (Two-Tier) is pursuing a policy intended to make us rejoin because it will be impossible to survive as a Sovereign, independent nation.
If we were self-sufficient in energy, their primary objective would be significantly weakened.
March 30, 2026
Big Oil and the fossil fuel lobby will love today’s post. We should remember that oil price shocks did huge damage to the economy in the 1970’s, causing 28% inflation and the loss of millions of jobs
Trump’s war of aggression on Iran will cause similar damage to our economy. The only way to prevent this is to get off fossil fuels completely. Iran is just the latest petrostate to hold us to ransom.
We need cheap homegrown renewable energy for our economy and not price gouging at the pumps with forecourt firms ripping off the public
Reply How do you make plastics, fertiliser, synthetic fabrics etc without oil and gas feedstock?
March 30, 2026
I presume Lord Redwood believes the Cameron, May, Johnson and Sunak Governments were also “hopeless” since they enthusiastically promoted and implemented the destructive Net Zero lunacy?
I haven’t forgotten Michael Gove meeting with Greta Thunberg and committing the UK to economic destruction.
https://deframedia.blog.gov.uk/2019/04/24/greta-thunberg-meets-uk-politicians/
I’m not expecting this comment to be published, or a response. It’s just too inconvenient …. move along, nothing to see.
Reply I set out the folly of net zero policies then and helped persuade Sunak/Couthino to shift to backing new oil and gas developments in UK! If you wish to engage with my views you can read my past comments on this site which have consistently criticised net zero policies based on our shifting to imports.
March 30, 2026
I’ll make a prediction. Miliband will “U” turn on Jackdaw and Rosebank, because the Norway gas interconnector pipeline requires maintenance this summer. But it won’t make any difference to the price of gas/petrol/diesel here. Rosebank in particular is only economic because of the stonking taxpayer subsidies paid to the developer
All it will do is extend our dependence on burning climate crisis causing hydrocarbons – when cheaper, home grown renewable energy and home batteries are dramatically reducing the public’s energy bills, particularly those who have installed solar on the roof of their properties
Reply 2 nd para wrong as set out before.
March 30, 2026
Badenoch says the Tories would scrap VAT on energy bills.
Badenoch says the Tories would ban cousin marriage.
Badenoch says the Tories would stop the Net Zero insanity (actually, just slow it down).
Aren’t the Tories capable of coming up with any policies of their own? They’re basically saying “Nigel Farage/Reform” are right.
Why would you vote for a “Leader” and Party that relies on another one to do its thinking and moving the Overton Window for it?
Reply Conservatives have set out how to cut spending to pay for these policies. Conservatives have costed and affordable tax cuts. No other party does.
March 30, 2026
MPs voted against all you recommend at the opposition day debate last week. Your recommended government damascene conversion so soon afterwards is difficult to envisage. We are firmly on course for disaster that some of us have been predicting for years. It would be no surprise if the government used it as perverse justification for emergency government legislation to take us back into EU membership just before the next general election.
Reply Conservatives were right to speak and vote to use more of our own oil and gas, and need to continue the pressure to get policy change.A good majority of the public agree.