UK’s Oil and Gas Industry Reaches Emissions Goal Early, Lobby Says

(Bloomberg) -- The UK’s offshore oil and gas industry reached its 2027 target for cutting emissions four years earlier than promised by making power systems more efficient, and reducing flaring and venting, a lobby group said Tuesday.

During the five years ending in 2023, companies reduced their pollution by more than 25%, a percentage they originally pledged to achieve by 2027 in the North Sea Transition Deal, according to Offshore Energies UK.

Britain is aiming for net zero emissions by 2050 and has enacted policies to accelerate the development of wind and solar energy, promote the use of electric vehicles and encourage installation of efficient heat pumps. The upstream oil and gas industry — responsible for about 3.5% of national emissions — still has a role in that future, the group said Tuesday.

“Oil and gas will remain essential for decades to come,” said Mark Wilson, OEUK’s director of health, safety, environment and operations. “It is better from all points of view — financial, environmental and social — that energy comes from our own homegrown North Sea supplies.”

The report comes out the same day Foreign Secretary David Lammy is set to deliver his first major policy speech. He’s expected to focus on plans to accelerate the global deployment of renewables and unlock more climate finance.

The UK’s domestic upstream oil and gas emitted 13.5 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, a 28% reduction compared with 2018, the group said.

Firms also more than halved their methane emissions during the same period, accomplishing that goal seven years ahead of schedule. The gas is 80 times more harmful than carbon dioxide for 20 years after it’s released into the air.

Beyond 2030, overall emissions from upstream oil and gas are predicted to drop “steeply” amid decreasing output, reduced flaring and venting, and the building of more-efficient installations, the report said.

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The nation’s production of primary oil fell to an all-time low last year, while gas production declined to the second-lowest output on record, according to the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Volumes could halve in six years, OEUK warns, unless “supportive fiscal and regulatory policy” is enacted.

The North Sea has the potential to unlock the equivalent of 13.5 billion barrels of domestic oil and gas, the report said.

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