The Energy Security Argument for Maximising New North Sea Licences is Based on Myth: Here’s the Truth

There is a political argument doing the rounds that deserves more scrutiny than it has received. It goes like this: maximising new North Sea oil and gas licences is essential for Britain's energy security. Without them, we will be dangerously dependent on imports from other countries. The choice is between British fossil fuels or foreign ones.

It is a powerful framing. But it is not one the evidence supports.

Cleantech for UK has just published a detailed analysis of the energy security case for North Sea expansion, drawing on the industry's own projections, the North Sea regulator's data, and independent economic modelling [1]. The findings should give pause to anyone relying on energy independence as the primary justification for expanding and maximising new licences.

What the industry's own numbers show

Even under the most optimistic scenario produced by Offshore Energies UK, one that assumes full reform of the Energy Profits Levy and £50 billion in new investment, the UK would still import approximately 80% of its gas by 2050 [2]. Under the North Sea Transition Authority's baseline projection, that figure rises to 92%.

This is not modelling from environmental campaigners or think tanks. It is the industry's own assessment of what maximum North Sea development delivers economically. The choice on offer is not between energy independence and import dependence. It is a choice about the degree of import dependence, and even the most bullish scenario leaves Britain overwhelmingly reliant on international gas markets.

There is a structural reason for this that is rarely discussed in the political debate. The North Sea is a mature basin. Production in 2025 is around 20% of its peak in 2000. New discoveries average 26 million barrels of oil equivalent, compared to 248 million per discovery in the basin's first decade [3]. Given the global average for new oil and gas projects is 15 years from discovery to production, new licences approved today would likely not deliver supply to consumers before the late 2030s [4]. The already-discovered Jackdaw and Rosebank fields are exceptions, but they represent a fraction of the capacity that proponents of wholesale North Sea expansion are promising.

We’d also have to invest £40bn to £80bn into new refineries to process this oil, because our refineries were configured to process a globally traded mix of crudes rather than to run exclusively on domestic supply [5]. 

What clean energy actually delivers

While the North Sea debate absorbs political oxygen, the clean energy economy is already delivering at scale, and the numbers are striking.

A single Contracts for Difference auction round, AR7, will unlock £27 billion in private investment and contracted capacity sufficient to power 16 million homes [1]. The UK's low carbon and renewable energy economy now employs 304,000 people directly and generates £77 billion in annual turnover, up 91% since 2015 [6]. Since July 2024, £50 billion in private clean energy investment has been announced in the UK.

These are not projections. They are the returns already being generated by the transition, returns that new North Sea licences cannot match on any comparable timescale.

The political case

For Labour MPs navigating the politics of energy in their constituencies, the argument for clean power is not just an environmental one. It is an economic security argument. It is an energy independence argument. It is a jobs argument. And, as this week's announcement on gas-electricity price delinking makes clear, it is increasingly a cost-of-living argument too.

The era of fossil fuel security is ending not because politicians have willed it, but because the economics have shifted irrevocably. The political challenge now is not to relitigate that shift, but to ensure the clean energy transition delivers for the communities that need it most: the 304,000 workers in the low-carbon economy, the founders building first-of-a-kind technologies, and the households and industries paying energy bills that remain linked to gas prices that Britain cannot control.

The numbers point in one direction. The task now is to act on them.

Endnotes

[1] Cleantech for UK, The Cost of Energy Choices, April 2026. Available at: https://www.cleantechforuk.com/news/what-does-fossil-fuel-dependency-actually-cost-a-briefing-paper-by-cleantech-for-uk 

[2] Offshore Energies UK, Maximum recovery scenario and industry investment analysis: oeuk.org.uk 

[3] North Sea Transition Authority, Production forecasts, unit operating costs, decommissioning liability: nstauthority.co.uk 

[4] Global Energy Monitor, Oil and gas project development timelines analysis, 2026: globalenergymonitor.org 

[5] DUKES 2025, Digest of UK Energy Statistics, Department for Energy Security and Net Zero: gov.uk/government/statistics/digest-of-uk-energy-statistics-dukes-2025 

[6] ONS Low Carbon and Renewable Energy Economy Survey, February 2026: ons.gov.uk