![COLUMN | Broken Britain: policy failures leave UK offshore sector adrift [Offshore Accounts]](http://media.assettype.com/bairdmaritime%2F2026-11-02%2Fydkq2i20%2FUntitled-November-24-2025-at-09.11.06.jpeg?w=480&auto=format%2Ccompress&fit=max)
Britain has 23 million homes dependent on gas for heat and cooking, an electricity system that needs gas on cold, dark and windless days (in the UK, gas generation represented approximately 27 per cent of electricity generation in 2025), and over 32 million petrol and diesel vehicles. Whilst fully electric vehicles account for a 26 per cent share of new car registrations year-to-date, there are still only 2,280,000 fully electric cars on the roads in the UK in total as of the end of September, less than ten per cent. In 2025, 302 million people passed through UK airports, generating aviation demand for jet fuel, and surveys indicate that 62 per cent of UK residents flew in the past 12 months.
Thus, the UK has an economy that still has strong demand and need for hydrocarbon fuels, despite the ruling Labour Party’s commitment to "net zero" in 2050. Investment in offshore wind has been booming, and the UK has 49 operational offshore wind farms with 2,905 turbines and 16 GW of capacity, mostly in the North Sea. Unfortunately, Dieter Helm, Professor of Economic Policy at the University of Oxford, gave the following observation:
“A system with the capability of supplying 100 per cent demand when the wind blows and the sun shines needs a back-up system [that] is very large scale. Put simply, with intermittent technologies, there needs to be a lot more capacity for a given demand. That has costs, and the back-up costs more because it is rendered intermittent by the renewables.”
As a result, British “household energy bills are the highest in Europe,” as Prime Minister Andy Burnham claimed in his first Commons statement earlier this year.
Ouch. The cost of living crisis is as much a cost of power and fuel crisis.
Whilst North Sea oil production has fallen in the Uk sector to around 770,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2025, down from the peak of 2.65 million bpd in 1999, the country still consumes 1.38 million bpd of oil. Hence, there is a massive shortfall, as there is in natural gas, where the UK only produces half its gas needs, and has to import the rest, mainly from Norway.
The contrast with Norway is stark. Norway has been the UK and Europe’s top gas supplier since 2022, supplying over 30 per cent of demand, and Norway also produces two million bpd of oil. Norway has kept drilling and even raised production of both oil and gas after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Oil and gas revenues powered Norway’s US$2 trillion sovereign wealth fund and have stimulated the development of an innovative and technologically focused maritime cluster. The UK lacks the subsea and defence capabilities of Kongsberg, the shipbuilding prowess of Vard and Ulstein and the strong shipowning tradition manifest in DOF, Solstad, Havila, Olympic and REM.
Unfortunately, the newly elected Labour Government in London declared a moratorium on new oil and gas projects in 2024, and the only cluster heard in relation to Britain’s energy policy is a combination noun merging “cluster” with an expletive that begins with F.
Given Britain’s chronic balance of payments problems, this policy has helped nobody, not least the government itself. The latest balance of payments data, from the second quarter of 2026, shows an underlying current account deficit of £11.3 billion (US$17.2 billion, which is 1.4 per cent of GDP), chronic government tax shortages (the UK ran a budget deficit of £153 billion/US$202 billion last year, equal to 5.2 per cent of GDP, according to the House of Commons Library), and a chronic youth unemployment problem. The decision not to allow new North Sea drilling and suspend new production policies is a self-harming choice. Britain has the highest number of young people not in employment, education and training (so-called “neets”) in the whole of Europe, except for Romania.
The Financial Times reported on Work Foundation at Lancaster University research, which highlighted that there was only one starter job for every three young people seeking work in the UK. Almost a million young people in Britain are “neets” and the proportion of 16- to 24-year-olds in Britain who fit this description has fallen below 10 per cent only once over the past 25 years. Since 1970, the British Government has had a budget surplus (spent less than it received in revenues) in only five years, and the last budget surplus was in 2000/01.
Britain is a country that is demonstrably failing economically, with sluggish economic growth, persistent youth unemployment, and a problem with long-term sickness amongst working age people as disability payouts have, in the words of a shocking Wall Street Journal investigation, “become a financial crutch for a large swath of the population as wages stagnate and prices rise.”
But don’t worry. Pensioners are protected from any hardship by the so-called Triple Lock, which unsustainably raises their state pension income at or above inflation every year in perpetuity.
Ideologues in the government make only the situation worse through their hostility to oil and gas, a luxury Britain can ill afford. Both the last Conservative government and the current Labour administration have had an emphasis on soundbites to show they occupy the moral high ground of supposed climate leadership, bending to a vociferous minority of vocal environmental activists, the Stop Oil brigade with their orange paint and disruptive protests. Yes, the UK has significantly reduced its carbon emissions, but this arguably correlates closely with the decline in manufacturing jobs and de-industrialisation, as high energy costs drive businesses away.
I am not advocating a reckless approach to climate change or emissions management, but the UK’s policy has demonstrably failed, and the government’s approach to the offshore industry is financially irresponsible, destructive to the employment of British workers, and ecologically irrelevant. The UK emitted just 0.81 per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions in 2024 compared to China’s 32 per cent, powered by China burning over four billion tons of coal, coal being the most polluting fossil fuel by far. The USA managed 13 per cent of global emissions but American emissions are about 14.4 tonnes of CO2 per person per year, three times higher than UK per capita emissions of 4.7 tonnes.
One can argue that the UK’s net zero policies have demonstrated global leadership. Indeed, the country is a role model in how bad energy policy can lead to prosperity reduction, deindustrialisation, and unemployment.
You have to be pretty narcissistic to believe that a country with such a small level of emissions and less than one per cent of the world’s population can make any difference whatsoever in solving the climate crisis.
So long as the UK is burning oil and gas, it would make sense from an energy security point of view to maintain domestic production. But British politicians have never lacked a delusional and inflated sense of their own importance and that of their country (see Brexit as another example, and the absurd claims made about the uniqueness of the National Health Service, the genius of an unwritten constitution where the unelected House of Lords persists, and the cleverness of the civil service, none of which withstand much scrutiny, and none of which are recognised outside the UK).
Climate change is a global problem and the UK’s climate impact comes from the carbon emissions associated with the burning of fossil fuels in the country – the domestic demand for oil and gas, whether or not it is produced in Britain. New oil and gas production in the North Sea will not change the UK’s, let alone the world’s, demand for fossil fuels.
Without American and Chinese action, global heating will not stop. These two countries with less than a quarter of the global population account for nearly half of all emissions.
But what matters nothing at the global level has a major impact at national level within the UK, where the upstream oil and gas industry directly employs about 28,000 people.
But, finally, some good news, even though Prime Minister Burnham’s advisors have made clear he has no plans to reverse Labour’s 2024 election manifesto pledge to not issue new exploration licences in the North Sea.
Miatta Fahnbulleh, the grandiosely titled Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, since Andy Burnham assumed the premiership in July of this year, has finally taken one step to change course. In October, she at last approved production from Jackdaw gas field, which had originally been approved by the previous Conservative government in 2022.
Some background: Dr Fahnbulleh appears from her CV never to have worked in the private sector, but she does have a PhD in industrial policy in those successful economic powerhouses of Ghana and Kenya. She has direct family experience of failed states and bad government, however, as her father is a former Foreign Minister of Liberia in the corrupt and violent military government of Samuel Doe. Her family fled to the UK in 1986 and applied for asylum when President Doe turned more repressive, as Liberia headed towards its first civil war.
But let's give credit where credit is due. After Labour was hammered in the Aberdeen South by-election largely due to anger at its net zero policies, losing to the Conservatives, who have adopted a pro-oil and gas drilling stance, Dr Fahnbulleh has at least approved one gas field. A Conservative victory in Scotland is as rare as a Green candidate triumphing in Kentucky, or a peace candidate winning an election in Russia.
The Jackdaw approval is expected to increase domestic gas production by around six per cent at its peak – supporting the UK’s gas supply over its lifespan of up to 11 years and boosting the nation's energy security, the UK Government said in this statement.
The field is located approximately 250 kilometres east of Aberdeen, and the wellhead platform is already installed, so production can commence from four wells in a few weeks. The platform is tied-back to the existing Shearwater Hub, using infrastructure already in place to bring gas onshore at St Fergus in Aberdeenshire. The field is operated by Adura, a 50/50 joint venture between Shell and Norwegian state oil company Equinor.
Rosebank decision is obvious but stupid is as stupid does
This approval is welcome… but even as she approved Jackdaw, Dr Fahnbulleh cast doubt on Adura’s second major project, the development of the Rosebank oil field northwest of the Shetland Islands. Rosebank is scheduled to add 300 million barrels of recoverable oil at a 70,000bpd peak flow from an FPSO, and it will begin operating by 2028 at a cost of US$3.8 billion, if Dr Fahnbulleh can be arsed to approve it.
In 2023, her predecessor Ed Miliband (the man who famously could not eat a bacon sandwich properly, thus precipitating Brexit), had described Rosebank as a, "colossal waste of taxpayer money and climate vandalism," even though it would generate tax revenue given North Sea oil is taxed at 78 per cent in Britain.
Please, can Norwegian and American readers not smirk at the pathetic state of the UK’s energy sector? In any sane country where the government had a clue and an interest in creating jobs and not sliding further into debt, approving Rosebank would be a no-brainer.
However, Dr Fahnbullehsaid in a BBC Radio Scotland interview that, “Jackdaw is producing gas that predominantly is used in the domestic market,” whilst “Rosebank is a different proposition because it is oil that is exported.”
Note that Rosebank’s oil needs to be exported due to the fact that Britain’s refining capacity has largely been shut down, so the oil has to be sent to Rotterdam because the UK cannot refine it itself. It lacks the facilities, after the Grangemouth and Lindsey refineries closed in 2025. Before Australian and New Zealand readers start smirking, you are in not just exactly the same but actually worse situations with regards to domestic refinery capacity.
The Secretary of State’s judgment on Rosebank is expected in December, according to officials.
One can only hope that after years of ineptitude, the UK finally does the right thing. Rosebank should be approved and operators should be encouraged to continue tying back satellite discoveries to existing infrastructure to maintain production. No wonder BP is trying to sell all its UK oil and gas production facilities. The only wonder will be whether it can find a buyer given the succession of shortsighted and economically illiterate policy decisions in the sector.
But is it not just in North Sea energy policy where Britain needs some joined up thinking.
We have highlighted how energy security also encompasses the protection of critical subsea infrastructure. In 2023, the British Royal Navy purchased two subsea vessels to beef up its protection against subsea threats, being the Vard-designed subsea vessel Topaz Tangaroa and an Ulstein-designed subsea vessel from Island Offshore, the 2013-built Island Crown (now operating as HMS Stirling Castle), or around US$50 million. Italy, France and Australia also took commercial subsea vessels out of the market for naval purposes.
This trend continues, with Arctic Offshore’s weekly newsletter highlighting that the Spanish Navy has now agreed to acquire the ROV support vessel Ocean Marlin from Navaleva for €28.9 million (US$32 million). The vessel, built at Zamakona Shipyards in Spain in 2014, is on charter with Sulmara until its scheduled delivery in the first quarter of next year. Upon delivery, the vessel is expected to enter service under the designation A63, joining sister vessel Carnota (the former Ocean Osprey), which the Spanish Navy bought in 2023 for €14.9 million (US$16.5 million at today’s exchange rates).
Whilst western navies have correctly identified mines and other subsea threats, a major challenge remains in the capability to repair cables if bad actors (okay, Russia) cut them. We highlighted last week how an investigation identified 17 Russian trawlers involved in more than 500 incidents of loitering over submarine cable routes, or following them for substantial distances, around the cables connecting Britain with the US and continental Europe. This was not a coincidence.
So, we were very surprised to say the least when a reader informed us that the one company that operates the only ships under the British flag that could repair a damaged cable in the event of hostile action by Russia, Global Marine Group, now owned by a Singaporean private equity, has been forced to withdraw its cableships from the Red Ensign.
Despite Global Marine's being UK-flagged for decades, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, as flag state authority, has apparently now taken what our correspondent felt was an unduly prescriptive interpretation of who are industrial passengers and special personnel, and who qualify as marine crew on board the cable repair ships.
The MCA apparently determined that the cable splicers and ROV pilots on board cannot be considered "marine" crew anymore, and unfortunately, Global Marine is not in a position to modify its, er, “mature” 1990s-built tonnage to comply with the Special Purpose Ship Code. So, we understand that the vessels concerned are being reflagged in Gibraltar.
Another example of the UK maritime clusterf*ck in action.
This raises the wider question of whether European governments should be contracting their own newbuild cable repair vessels rather than relying on Global Marine and Orange and Alcatel Submarine Networks in the event that Captain Ivan Slackalot on board a random Russian trawler “accidentally” manages to sever data or power interconnector cables between the US and Ireland or the UK and Norway at a critical moment of international tension.
Dr Fahnbulleh said the taxes from Jackdaw gas field will be earmarked to a special energy sovereign wealth fund. If she wants to make a difference to energy security, the first investment might be to order a cable repair ship for the Royal Navy.
Data and power are more important than ever. Both Russia and China have demonstrated offensive capabilities to cut them if they wish, and events off Taiwan and in the Baltic suggest that they have been practicing. Having cable repair capabilities is probably more important than having aircraft carriers in the current defence environment.
Who will be the first to order a new cable repair vessel? Canberra, London, or Dublin?
Background reading
You can download the UK North Sea Transition Authority 2026 overview, which provides information about the UK’s offshore energy industry and the NSTA's role in securing energy production here.
Our coverage of the private sector cable repair and cable lay market from February is here.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies produced this excellent report into Ireland’s complete dependence on subsea cables and its dangerous vulnerability:
“In February 2020, Irish security services reportedly accused Moscow of planting agents in the country in order to map submarine cables and landing stations. In 2021, a cyberattack targeted Irish health services, highlighting the rising threats in the digital domain. The same year, the Russian vessel Yantar was spotted deploying a deep-sea mini-submarine off the Irish coast. The vessel, which had been involved in previous cable-probing incidents, was following the proposed Celtic-Norse cable and the AEC-1 cable, which links Europe to the United States. More recently, in November 2024, Yantar was escorted from the Irish Sea after it was caught patrolling above subsea cables and operating three drones. And in March 2025, a cargo ship linked to the Russian shadow fleet was seen dropping an anchor close to an undersea cable in Irish waters.”