By Robert Bradley Jr.
“Whilst the government is pursuing a pragmatic approach to the North Sea, we have to accept the geological reality that North Sea gas production has declined by 74% since its peak in 2000 and we have been a net importer of gas since 2004.” – UK Government Report (below)
The United Kingdom represents less than one percent of global CO2 emissions. Yet the political class, including academic experts, will not be deterred from social injustice for consumers and self-annihilation of its economy. UK energy statism is tears-in-the-ocean–and for the wrong cause.
The latest report from the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, titled “Gas System in Transition: Security of Supply (Interim Response),” tries to square the circle between decarbonization and economy. “The UK must decarbonize because of volatile, higher oil and natural gas prices, yet energy affordability is important too.” Such, in the words of UK energy analyst Richard Lyon, is where “the small print stopped agreeing with the press line.”
Consider in three parts the Ministerial Foreword under the UK Minister of Energy, Michael Shanks. It begins:
When we published the Gas System in Transition: Security of Supply Consultation in November 2025, we were clear that the only way to ensure our ongoing energy security, and to protect households from volatile fossil fuel prices, was to accelerate our move to low-carbon energy sources. This was independently verified by NESO, the energy system planner, in their Gas Security of Supply Assessment last year.
The global impact of events in the Middle East this year have further evidenced the urgency and importance of decarbonising our energy system. We have an alternative available to us in the form of home-grown, low carbon energy, and these events have underlined why we must stick with our long-term plan to move to clean energy and away from the price volatility associated with fossil fuels.
And as our country decarbonises, the amount of gas we use will decline, meaning gas will have a decreasing influence on our energy bills, increasing our energy independence and economic security, and protecting consumer bills.
Comment: This summary is disingenuous. A liberated home-grown fossil-fuel sector would offer more, locationally advantaged supply. Buyers can contractually lock-in prices and other terms with local providers, avoiding force majeure risk with international supply. Furthermore, domestic (UK) producers would benefit from the price uptick that otherwise goes to producers everywhere, such as those in the Permian Basin in West Texas.
Supporters of UK policy could respond by saying these benefits are de minimis. But so is the futile quest to decarbonize an economy that contributes so little to global emissions.
Consumer Hedge
“However,” the next thought begins, “because gas is a global commodity, with prices set on the international market, we have all had to pay more to attract the unaffected supply.”
With diminishing output from the North Sea over the past decades, any gas produced from the UK Continental Shelf represents a tiny fraction of global demand and so will not lower prices nor materially boost supply. We have therefore taken measures to help protect British families from the volatile gas market and break the link between gas and electricity prices.
The assets that form our gas system – geological storage, LNG terminals, interconnectors, North Sea infrastructure and the networks that connect them – will all help to make GB more secure and resilient throughout the transition. The aim of this consultation, and the wider ‘gas system in transition’ work is to ensure we are tackling the long-standing challenges and not ignoring them for the next generation.
We set out some of these challenges in our Update to Market 2025 and Gas in Transition consultation alongside our plans to address them. NESO’s GSSA also highlighted risks to our gas security of supply from 2030, driven by the structural decline of the North Sea basin, and pointing to the need for market intervention or investment in the system.
Comment: No, diminished domestic production is political, not geological. Yes, natural gas infrastructure is essential for the UK to limp along and spare, to some extent, energy deterioration.
3. North Sea Discussion
“Whilst the government is pursuing a pragmatic approach to the North Sea,” the third and final thought of the Foreword begins,
we have to accept the geological reality that North Sea gas production has declined by 74% since its peak in 2000 and we have been a net importer of gas since 2004. The North Sea can therefore no longer be relied upon to meet our energy needs and we will become more reliant on our import infrastructure.
Comment: The North Sea discussion falsely blames geology rather than government intervention for the decline in North Sea production. Back in the 1970s, the U.S. self-sabotaged its domestic oil and gas industry on the false notion of Peak Oil and Peak Gas. Today, UK energy planners want to shift blame from Net Zero policies to the natural market.
Will the UK wake up? Will voters say enought to high bills and a landscape littered with “green” machinery? One can only hope so.
Quite apart from the N. Sea and E. Atlantic, we have lots of gas under our feet, we just have to frack.
Sea Lion is bigger than the North sea and that, plus elections, has got Milei very upset.
Apart from the known shale gas basin targets on shore, the UK has vast black coal and coal gas resources offshore of Yorkshire well into the North Sea. This coal can be used for power generation or changed to produce liquid fuels like South Africa does.
The real problem the UK faces is not fossil fuel economics or the availability of suitable power resources, it is the political will and the guts to put an end to the climate emergency ideology nonsense that is driving this country and many other foolish democratic nations to the wall.
You must not blindly believe or trust what governments and the bureaucrats say about climate science, environmental risks and current energy policy, because they are being driven by false environmental scary propaganda from simplistic climate models and sheer virtue signaling. However, choosing to act aggressively about climate change rather than adapt to any real problems when they emerge is a key issue, as well as the overt profit motive of `renewable energy’ promotors.
Critically, scientific evidence does not support the green environmental hypothesis that industrial emissions of CO2 are causing modern or historic global warming, or that there are increasing climate hazards as a result of this warming. In fact, CO2 rise is not bad or dangerous as imputed by eco-alarmists but is highly beneficial for both humans and the environment because it is causing more efficient photosynthesis in all plants, promoting crop growth and the general greening of the planet. Warming itself is also beneficial if it is moderate which is the case with cyclic solar driven modern warming.
Therefore, it is evident that there is no climate crisis to worry about, the current alarm has been studiously manufactured for political purposes by UN globalist elites, but after 45 years of environmental fervor, none of their predictions have proven true and the public are now tired of this never-ending energy transition related drama that is causing a cost-of-living crisis.
We can expect three more years of this nonsense from the Labour party until the next general election is called. It is very unlikely that the Labour party will win this election, especially with its collapse in popularity in Scotland and Wales where it won the majority of the Scottish and Welsh seats in the last general election.
Whilst the government is pursuing a pragmatic approach to the North Sea
Like dithering over Rosebank and Jackdaw for most of this year. Don’t hold your breath, the UK is going full tonto – and islamic.
Burham appears to want them to go ahead but nothing actually happens, it probably will get his green light but he knows the activists will use the courts and the climate change legistation to stop them. He can they say ‘not me gov, I supported them’. Miliband is ruling Burham, Burham is just the front for Milibands policies.
[“The United Kingdom represents less than one percent of global CO2 emissions.“]
Yes, BUT … it’s the most important per cent; it’s British; therefore, it has more influence than anybodyelse’s 10%.
Our less than 1% CO2 could cause oceans to boil, sea levels to swamp entire continents, melt Greenland in days, burn every tree on the planet (we are attempting that at Drax), drown all the fish, create earthquakes, induce volcanoes & cause simultaneous drought & flood in the same place, and that’s just this week; wait till next week … it’s haemorrhoids & pustulations !!!
it’s British; therefore, it has more influence than anybody else’s 10%.
Careful now, here comes the Himalayan Maldives…
Nepal is demanding $20m in climate compensation for the recent devastating floods, as a senior minister called on the world’s most polluting countries to “wake up” and accept shared responsibility for a disaster that led to the death or disappearance of more than 6,000 people.
A major bedrock collapse cannot be blamed on climate
“It seems that a massive rock face with the glacier on top of it has essentially gone,”
While scientists haven’t definitively linked the Lhende Khola landslide to the climate crisis, they have pointed out that rising temperatures mean permanently frozen mountain slopes are at risk of melting and destabilising.
Nepal is trying its luck and the UK will fall for it – hook, line, sinker and copy of the Angling Times.
Pretty funny when you look at all the damage the Chinese are doing in the Himalayan range with roads, tunnels and dams all over the place. You can’t build in the mountains without stressing the system.
Don’t forget nuclear power plants. Won’t CO2 cause all of them to blow up?
Absolutely !!
There is nothing you can think of that British CO2 can’t make
1,000a million times worse; it makes us proud to be British that we are world leaders in crazy CO2 self-flagellation. And we will get back to the Stone Age faster than the rest of you suckers.Drax manufactures pellets from wood waste from a number of sources. Trees are not felled for manufacture of the pellets. However, slash and
non-merchantable timber can be used for making pellets. Drax receives gov. subsides for their wood pellet operation.
From Grok:
No, US wood pellets used by Drax do not avoid felling trees. A large share comes from live trees harvested in working forests, mainly via thinnings and low-grade roundwood rather than only mill leftovers.
drax.com
Drax’s own published figures show this mix. In recent reporting for US fibre (around 5.9 million tonnes), sawmill and other wood-industry residues accounted for roughly 45%, while low-grade roundwood was about 31% and thinnings about 19%, plus smaller amounts of branches/tops and salvage. For its US South operations specifically, Drax has stated that 56.3% came from thinnings and low-grade roundwood and 39.3% from sawmill residues.
Searchup images with this: “roundwood: trees forestry”
Drax uses old growth trees from Canada’s west coast forests.
– – – – – – – – –
U.K company accused of burning B.C. old growth trees
An environmental group is claiming that B.C. old-growth trees are being burned to generate electricity in the U.K.
Stand.earth says in a report that wood pellets from three Drax mills in Northern B.C. are being made from some of the province’s oldest forests.
https://globalnews.ca/news/11527322/uk-company-accused-burning-bc-old-growth-trees/
Well Google responds to “north sea proven gas reserves”
with
And “uk gas usage in BoE”
with
The Worldometer describes it as 4 years worth at current usage rates and that aligns approximately with the Google query.
So there’s the evidence. What evidence is provided by the article to support the article’s claim
And the answer is none whatsoever.
What does it say about the Sea Lion field? Let me save you the trouble of resorting to AI. It’s 917 million barrels of oil.
So assuming the “proven reserves” query somehow missed it, that’s about 3 more year’s worth if extraction could match demand which, of course can never happen. So with those assumptions its probably 20 years worth of gas at about 10% of the demand.
So its expensive undersea gas and not nearly enough of it to make a difference.
So assuming the “proven reserves” query somehow missed it
Are you by any chance a bot? Everybody knows AI is ‘internet trained’. Do your own legwork then you don’t have to waste time correcting whatever AI told you.
I’m not. Are you a bot? This article is about gas, not oil.
Excellent stuff. Did AI do that one?
We have plenty of oil and gas, we also have a Parliament that is determined to leave it all in the ground. That is very much a political choice by the communist government; a choice you appear to applaud.
Then prove it with documented proven reserves figures and compare those to actual usage rates.
I don’t have to prove anything – it’s all out there in the public domain.
Your opposition to our using our resources is noted.
I gave you the proven North Sea gas reserve data along with references, two google searches and a Wordometer reference. If you’re claiming they’re wrong then its up to you to provide the “correct” data.
You aren’t listening are you.
Your opposition to our using our resources has been noted. Unless you are here in the UK… then your economically suicidal tendency has been noted.
I dont care less what the UK does. But I can see the reality of the situation in the North Sea and the depletion of the resources there to be able to convincingly know that statements like
Are nonsense.
Your opposition to our using our resources has been noted. Our Parliament has determined it will be left in the ground.
That is a political choice. But it isn’t cut and dried…
Britain lacks the authority to stop the Falklands from tapping into oil reserves, as such matters fall outside the jurisdiction of UK ministers.
My “opposition” to you using your resources has been imagined.
Has it, indeed?
Regarding
The fact is you dont. Use it till its gone, you’ll almost certainly do that eventually anyway. But realise you need something to replace it and it wont happen overnight.
You apparently don’t know what the term, “proven reserves” means. Maybe you should do a little more research. And strativarius is right-he doesn’t need to prove anything to you just because you demand it.
Proven resources is what you can get to economically and practically. Its wishful thinking to believe there is a lot of undiscovered oil and gas in the north sea. Could be true…just not likely.
False. I would be up on fraud charges (at a level meaning probable prison time) and lose my license to practice if I tried to claim “Reserves” with that definition.
Well why don’t you provide a better definition and use that to make an argument that there is a lot more to be found. The Norwegians haven’t found a lot.
False comparison. See my post either above or below. Proven Reserves is a legal term that is very tightly bound. Without legal permits and licensing (and a lot of Engineers’ and Geologists’ work) there can be no Reserves.
Replying to myself…The Sea Lion field isn’t gas so Strativarius reply is irrelevant to this article. But even if you consider it as usable oil, the UK uses about 500M barrels of oil per year so its 2 years worth…but actually many more than 2 years worth at a fraction of the UK’s demand.
Replying to myself…
First sign of madness.
I’d have thought the first sign was participating here in the first place.
One wonders why you do? Nice smear job.
Did you really think 917M barrels was going to make a dent in the UKs demand?
You didn’t answer the question, Timbo…
50 years ago world Gas reserves were 70 to 75 trillion cu meters, 25 years ago they were 150 to 160 trillion cu meters, today they are about 206 trillion cu meters. Why does the Number keep growing? Does the UK government think it’s people are to stupid to search for new reserves? Seems reserves always increase when searching for new reserves, especially when you have the expertice in the producing fields, but first you must have a government with the desire to search.
Because we found more oil as more of the earth was explored. Today, the production rates are being maintained through fracking which hasn’t “added” oil and gas but instead has increased the rate we can produce what’s left. But that just means the remaining gas and oil is decreasing more quickly.
The discovery rate has trended down for a long time. At the risk of annoying people, here is the Google AI summary and it looks about right to me.
Proven reserve doesn’t mean total reserve. It’s typical to only proof a field out a few years even when you know it has a lot more. North sea has potentially decades of unproven oil and gas under it.
“Total” typically includes uneconomical or inaccessible reserves. If there was a lot of north sea oil remaining, I’d definitely expect it to have been found when the exploration was at its peak.
Its possible, but highly unlikely there’s “decades” worth in the way you mean even though the current reserves will likely be extracted at lower and lower production rates for years to come.
If it’s uneconomic then by definition it cannot be Reserves. When the price changes or a new extraction technology is developed then the Reserves change.
At the end of the day the North sea resources are depleting. You can come up with whatever definitional arguments you like but it doesn’t change that fact. Come back here when there is a major discovery or major advancement in extraction technology that makes whatever is left, feasible to obtain.
“Proven” gas reserves are not all gas deposits, just what has been surveyed and measured, is extractible but not yet extracted.
Total amount of gas and oil – anywhere in the World – is unknown, because companies only quantify gas/oil fields when they want to schedule drilling and extraction, because it is costly to do so. They only do it when the need arises.
The World ran out of “proven” reserves in the 1980s, then again in the 1990s, then again in the first decade of the 21st Century. We keep running out but oddly we have more than ever.
By the by: “estimated” and “proven” are mutually exclusive and may not credibly be used in the same sentence. So Google can go boil its head.
Originally it was the US that peaked in the 70s and the oil crisis followed. As we’ve gone along, we’ve explored more and more of the world but now most of the world has been explored and assessed.
Sure, there will be undiscovered resources but its incredibly unlikely there will ever be another Ghawar field found or indeed anything close and the discovery rate has been declining compared to our production rates for a long time.
So we’re in the end days for fossil fuels and we can either transition away from them early, relatively slowly and with low impact or we can wait and hope for better technology to appear but if it doesn’t, transitioning will be much worse than we experience today. Many will die due to lack of energy, and not a lack that can be fixed with greater government spend, actual lack.
Perhaps AI will save us.
In my jurisdiction Estimated is a Resource class meaning the level of geologic certainty. Reserves mean a lot more planning and all permits etc are in hand along with a development plan with a positive NPV. Both are constantly changing. To save money companies will explore enough to get 20 years of Resources and 5-10 years of Reserves. Closely measuring only a small portion of the overall deposit/field.
And anyone who trusts AI to get that distinction right wouldn’t last long as a mining professional.
Then perhaps you can tell us about the sizes, frequency and economics of discovery over time in your experience. As reported, globally discovery is in strong decline.
Nevermind, up to here I was expecting you to be talking about oil and gas but instead your speciality is coal and I agree there is a lot more coal left.
In fact, I agree that there is likely a lot more than we’re currently mining a per
“Proven Reserves” is a legal term. As a Professional Mining Engineer if I note Proven Reserves then that means I have all permits, licenses, access, required mining (or drilling) equipment, processing facilities, geologic certainty (and a Professional Geoscientist willing to stake their profession name and credentialing on that certainty), and a mining plan with a positive cash flow and NPV at a discount rate that I must state. The company I work for has Proven Reserves for about 5 years. And at least 200 years worth of mining before we’re anywhere close to exhausting the coal field we’re working. Why should we spend $millions todsy god what we won’t mine in the next 20 years?
The world has at least 2 millenia of coal before it could be close to exhausted at current prices. Raise tye price and that bevones 3 or 4 millenia. What we don’t have is political will and acceptance and so there are many deposits that will never be licensed and therefore never become Reserves.
Requirements are more the stock exchange than the professional licensing body. Depending where it’s listed JORC or 43-101 or another set of rules and definitions may apply (on the mining side, I don’t speak natural gas or oil wells).
Coal is a whole different ball game and much less impacted by production rates. You never mentioned that until now?
I suggest you update the wiki and worldometer because every reference I’ve seen puts it at more like 120 years.
Check the time stamps. This was my first written response to your top level comment.
Natural gas occurs in coal seams and is quantified as part of the volatiles component (VM on the contract specifications sheet) sheet). When prices increase more of this associated natural gas becomes Resources or Reserves. If oil prices got high enough then heavy oil distillates can be derived from coal.
Thank you for agreeing that there are potentially over a thousand years of oil supply currently in the form of coal.
The author of this blog, Robert Bradley Jr., asserts that “diminished domestic [natural gas] production is political, not geological.”. As founder of the Institute for Energy Research, a US think tank that supports fossil fuels, he is obviously well-placed to support this assertion by irrefutable evidence that geological factors play little or no part in this decline. It’s a pity that he chose not to cite this evidence.
Why does Norway keep finding more oil and NG in the North Sea? Is that political or Geological? Or is it a matter of a functioning government?
“In Norway 76 blocks have been offered for exploration in the Barents and Norwegian seas and 57 new production licenses have been issued for the Norwegian continental shelf”
IEA ‘World Energy Investment 2026’ (May 2026)
Norway’s government knows what is good for its economy, people, and the Sovereign Wealth Fund!
Norway’s discoveries are small.
Norway’s largest and most significant North Sea oil discovery of the 21st century is the Johan Sverdrup oil field, found in 2010 with estimated recoverable reserves of 1.7 to 3.3 billion barrels. [1]
Recent Developments
To put that in perspective 3.3B barrels in 2010 was 33 days of global usage. 100M barrels recently is one day of global usage.
They explore more and use new technologies as they become available.
the political class, including academic experts, will not be deterred from social injustice for consumers and self-annihilation of its economy.
Exhibit #94
UPDATE: The Tories are going big on this. A gift has landed in their lap:
Let us not forget the ever helpful media
Can an entire Arctic ecosystem evolve to adapt to the climate crisis?
Greenland’s Icecap Grew This Year
“With diminishing output from the North Sea over the past decades, any gas produced from the UK Continental Shelf represents a tiny fraction of global demand and so will not lower prices nor materially boost supply.”
This is disingenuous – that’s the polite word for lies.
40% of UK gas is piped to GB from the North Sea where it has nowhere else to go as there are no gas liquefaction facilities. It is not therefore part of the global market.
Increasing North Sea supply would lower gas prices in the UK, because the balance currently is from LNG which is more expensive because of processing and transportation costs. Nearly all LNG comes from the USA on fixed contracts. The problems with Iran have had no effect.
As for geography. If it were a problem why has the Government insisted it will issue no more new licences or extensions for existing ones? Why would oil & gas companies want licences if the stuff wasn’t there?
Meanwhile Norway is increasing its oil and gas output from the same geography.
82% of British homes use gas for heating. Transitioning that to electricity is a fantasy since intermittent wind and solar cannot provide the output even to meet current demands, and certainly not future demand. Nor do with have the HT grid infrastructure or more important the Low Voltage local infrastructure to carry and distribute the load that would result.
These folk are incapable of telling the truth and rely on the general ignorance of the public and apparent lack of curiosity of the media Commentariat to get away with their lies.
“… tries to square the circle …”
This idiom is used quite a bit. I wonder what percent of folks know the meaning. In this post’s usage it does mean something impossible – decarbonization or a vibrant economy.
In high school geometry class, years ago, we were tasked with making a square equal in area to an arbitrary circle using only a straightedge and a compass. Two other problems were “doubling the cube” and “angle trisection”, equally impossible.
Do you remember? Are such exercises still done in schools?
Slight problem for “accelerate our move to low carbon energy sources” is that over 22m of the 28m+ homes in the UK are on the gas network and electricity is currently four times more expensive than gas.
Cannot see many of those 22m+ homes voluntarily coming off gas!
The longevity of “Peak Oil” is impressive. We are a few days past the centenary of the report from President Coolidge’s Federal Oil Conservation Board. That report forecast that the world would run out of oil by 1932.
Plus ca change…….
We’ve been mining Copper for over 5000 years. We mine a lot more now than we did 50, 100, or 1000 years ago.
A perfect example of why government needs to get out of the energy business. Lying and cheating all the way down the line. These boys need a trip to the woodshed and their mouth washed out with soap.
Oops!
The projection of the flag onto the islands in the (AI created?) image is anachronistic! By about 124 years!
Some people could get all worked up about that!