Fossil Energy – Licences
Offshore Energies UK says today’s offer of 31 new oil and gas licences to operators by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) strengthens energy security and business confidence across all sectors as the expansion into wind, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage accelerates.
The licences are chiefly for gas extraction from the southern North Sea, with the potential to come on stream to power and heat the UK’s businesses and homes within the next five years.
They will make the UK less reliant on imported gas, which the NSTA has shown to be more carbon intensive. This means the licences will help to lower the nation’s carbon footprint as the industry works to build an attractive investment environment that can enable a homegrown energy transition and kickstart economic growth.
31 licences have been offered in the third tranche of the NSTA’s 33rd licensing round after rigorous environmental checks. This is important news for people across the industry and its supply chains, which support over 200,000 jobs up and down the UK.
A total of 82 offers to 50 companies have now been made in the round which attracted 115 bids from 76 companies across 257 blocks and part-blocks. The licences offered in the round have the potential to add an estimated 600 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) up to 2060, or 545 mmboe by 2050.
