The Scottish Affairs Committee's report on North Sea policy is absolutely right to conclude that, in recent years, there has been a disastrous failure to plan for job losses at Grangemouth and in North Sea oil & gas. But its findings are unfortunately already out of date. More detail in the 🧵:

While the Tory party's energy & climate policy grows increasingly detached from reality, worth reflecting on a remarkable, under-reported event at Labour conference: the launch of Climate Jobs UK, a campaign by GMB, Prospect & other TUs focused on the creation of good jobs in the energy transition
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If you're in sunny Bournemouth today, come along to the cracking panel we've organised to discuss how to secure a fair transition for the North Sea.
Speakers include Lib Dem climate spokes @pippaheylings.bsky.social MP, Alastair Carmichael MP, Elliot Chapman-Jones & @dominicmhinde.bsky.social (& me)

But if you read the small print, it turns out this is patently false. The industry’s OWN analysis says that production on this scale, while theoretically possible, is ‘beyond realistic assumptions’.
(p. 15 of this report: landing.westwoodenergy.com/hubfs/Westwo...)
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The FT’s John Gapper has offered his advice on North Sea oil and gas drilling this morning. Let’s start with what we agree on:

The UK government needs a proper plan for the future of the North Sea. This is unarguable. 🧵

Basically she is in deep denial about the geological reality of the North Sea, which is that it's been in decline for decades. New mandates & tax breaks galore will not change that. Even with new fields, our dependency on imported gas is set to rise to 97% by 2050. Time for a new plan folks! /5

Genuinely crackers statement from Kemi Badenoch this AM setting out her approach to North Sea oil & gas.

As Badenoch says, "cheap abundant energy is the foundation of prosperity"... which is exactly why we need to plan to transition away from North Sea oil & gas and focus on renewables instead 🧵

This would be laughable if it wasn't so serious: yet again, the Tories are claiming that we can get "all our oil and gas" from the North Sea and that we should be doing even more to support the industry to extract.

There are several reasons why we should treat this with maximum scepticism:

Another day, another story from the oil & gas industry that's all spin. The latest claim is there's an extra 3.5-ish bn barrels of O&G there for the taking in the North Sea, which would generate huge riches for the UK. Except the underlying analysis confirms this is "beyond realistic assumptions"
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We certainly don't have enough oil or gas left to make a material difference to the price we pay for it. E.g. here's the oil & gas regulator's projection for gas production to 2050, including if we develop new fields. We're 94% dependent on imports with new fields & 97% dependent without them.
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Here are those projections. If you don't like the idea of energy import dependency then the best solution is to get off fossil fuels.

Lots of claims flying around this week (eg Nigel Farage who thinks we can be "self-sufficient" in gas) that the UK can drill its way to energy security. Here's why that's a fantasy, as I explained to Reform's Richard Tice on LBC earlier:

Spent a fun hour debating climate & environment with Richard Tice from Reform last night on an LBC panel and was very happy to help set him straight on the cause of high electricity prices in the UK (spoiler alert: it's gas).

Plenty more to say about why approving new oil & gas fields isn't the right tactic for a thriving, prosperous future for the UK, but even on the government's own "growth for growth's sake" approach, it doesn't make sense to double down on O&G:

Had an excellent time on Pod Save the UK talking about how little the Rosebank oil field would benefit the UK public (but what a great deal it is for the oil & gas companies that are trying to develop it).

Thanks for having me on @mrnishkumar.bsky.social!