MSP Briefing | No New Oil and Gas & Rosebank Oil Field

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The UK is the second largest oil and gas producer in Europe. Over fifty years of oil and gas drilling has made the UK, including Scotland, a major global polluter. The North Sea basin is now maturing, and there are major opportunities, particularly in Scotland, to transition to renewable energy. 

The Scottish Government’s long-delayed Energy Strategy and Just Transition Plan is still awaiting publication. This will set out the Scottish Government’s position on new oil and gas, which remains highly significant, even though decisions on offshore oil and gas are made by the UK Government.

The UK Government is also at a critical juncture in its oil and gas policy, with two public consultations which will define its approach to the North Sea oil and gas transition.

This is a pivotal moment to secure a rapid transition away from oil and gas production in Scotland and the UK - in line with scientific advice that new fossil fuel developments risk breaching climate limits - alongside securing a just transition for workers and communities reliant on the declining North Sea. 

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The case for no new oil and gas

New oil and gas is not the solution to secure, affordable energy 

• After 50 years of drilling, the geology of the North Sea means that the UK and Scotland’s  transition away from oil and gas production is unavoidable and already underway, with reserves declining and becoming harder to reach. 
• Most of what’s left in the ageing North Sea basin is oil - 80% of which is exported¹. New developments would provide a maximum of three weeks of gas a year from 2024 to 2050, if none of it was exported². 
• New oil and gas production will not affect the price consumers pay in Scotland. All of the UK’s remaining oil and gas reserves belong - not to the UK state - but to the energy companies that own the licences, who sell it at international prices.
• Reducing our reliance on oil and gas, scaling up renewables, and insulating Scotland’s leaky homes is the only way to permanently lower energy bills and deliver genuine energy security.
• A recent survey found that 65% of Scottish business leaders support ending new licensing for oil and gas and 82% are in favour of the UK Government’s wider plans to end the role that fossil fuels play in generating the UK’s energy.³ 
• Approving new fields would send contradictory signals to investors. As EY has noted in the past, by diminishing its green policies, the UK risks becoming a less attractive destination for investment in renewable energy.⁴
• Finally, continuing to approve new fields, reduces the imperative to develop alternatives quickly, locking Scotland into a cycle of dependency, precisely when it wants to reduce citizens' exposure to volatile fossil fuel markets.

Workers and communities deserve a just transition

• Jobs supported by the UK’s oil and gas industry have more than halved in the past decade⁵, despite hundreds of new licences being issued and new fields being approved. A range of sources, including the North Sea Transition Authority and the Climate Change Committee, all project declining employment in oil and gas regardless of the predicted levels of production from the basin. 
• Even while companies made historic profits in recent years, workers had to strike for better pay and conditions.⁶
• Over 93% of surveyed oil and gas workers want a clear path out of high carbon jobs,⁷ and over 90% of oil and gas workers possess skills that are transferable to the offshore renewables sector.⁸
• The real pathway to supporting workers, supply chain firms, and communities currently dependent on the oil and gas industry is by developing a credible plan for the North Sea transition and ensuring those dependent on the oil and gas sector benefit from this transition. This includes establishing domestic clean energy supply chains to provide secure, long-term jobs for oil and gas workers to transition into.

Oil and gas companies do not have the public interest at heart

• Oil and gas companies have been making obscene profits while millions of people struggle with unaffordable energy bills. In 2022, oil and gas companies walked away with £32 billion in post-tax profits from North Sea drilling.⁹ 
• The industry still benefits from billions in tax relief annually, despite earning record profits in recent years. The majority of North Sea profits have gone to shareholders as dividends, or to share buybacks and debt repayment, rather than investment.¹⁰ 

• Just seven out of 87 offshore oil and gas companies intend to spend anything on renewable energy by 2030¹¹, undermining the industry’s claim to be a driving force behind the transition to clean energy and reducing them to minor players in the future low carbon energy system. 

Climate impacts are burdening ordinary people 

• 2024 was the world’s hottest year on record, and the first year to temporarily breach the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°C¹². The science is clear: there can be no new oil and gas developments if we are to have a chance of keeping within safe climate limits. 
• When burned, oil and gas from proposed new North Sea oil and gas fields – areas that have received a licence but still need a final development permit from the UK Government – would release 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. That’s the same amount of CO2 that the UK’s 28 million households would produce over the next three decades (at current rates of household emissions)¹³. 
• As climate impacts get worse and more frequent, the costs are increasingly falling on ordinary people, as seen by the recent Storm Eowyn in Scotland. Clean up costs from storms in the UK amount to hundreds of millions each time¹⁴. UK farmers were almost £1bn worse off last year due to heavy rainfall¹⁵.
• Polling repeatedly shows the public wants climate action. Two-thirds of Scots think climate change should be a high priority for the Scottish Government¹⁶. 

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The Case Against Rosebank

Rosebank is widely opposed
At 500 million barrels, Rosebank is the UK's biggest undeveloped oil and gas field. It has become a lightning rod for criticism, drawing widespread opposition from 700 scientists and experts, 200 organisations, trade union leaders, 400 faith leaders, as well as a large, cross party body of politicians. 

Rosebank is unlawful
In January 2025, the Scottish Court of Session ruled that the decision by the Conservative government to approve Rosebank in September 2023 was unlawful, as it did not account for the emissions that would be caused by burning the field’s reserves.¹⁷ Equinor has since stated it will apply for a new development consent, once the UK government clarifies its guidelines for how those emissions should be assessed in the Spring.  Following a new environmental assessment and public consultation on the field, the UK government would need to make a fresh decision to approve or reject Rosebank.

Rosebank will not deliver UK energy security or lower bills
Rosebank’s oil is overwhelmingly for export and will do nothing to strengthen the UK’s energy security or resilience to shocks. Rosebank’s reserves are 90% oil, and the UK exports around 80% of the oil it produces. Equinor has said that Rosebank’s oil would be sold on the open market, most likely in Europe.

New UK oil and gas production does not affect the market price. It will make no difference to UK energy bills, a fact that former Conservative government ministers have publicly admitted. Equinor owns Rosebank’s reserves, and it will sell the oil and gas to the highest bidder at international market prices. 

Rosebank is a bad deal for taxpayers
The UK public will effectively carry 84%  of the cost of developing Rosebank,¹⁸ with the field’s owners, Equinor and Ithaca, receiving billions of pounds in tax breaks.¹⁹ Meanwhile, Equinor – which made £24 billion in profits in 2024.²⁰ – and its partner Ithaca would take the profit.  Since Equinor is majority owned by the Norwegian state, Norway stands to gain more from a Rosebank approval than the UK does. Norway already has a national wealth fund worth trillions built from its oil and gas assets.

Equinor also secured £400 million in tax relief in just two years thanks to a little-known tax break, the Ringfence Expenditure Supplement (RFES), originally created to enable smaller oil companies to explore marginal fields in the North Sea.²¹

Further, UK government support for oil companies has long been premised on the fact that they will deliver the energy transition. However, Equinor has just announced that it is halving its investment in renewable energy while increasing oil and gas production, confirming it will put its private interest above the UK public interest.²² 

Rosebank will not protect workers
The claim Rosebank will create 1000s of jobs is inflated, with 255 direct jobs expected to be created in the UK over its lifetime.²³ Equinor has also decided to construct the main offshore vessel for Rosebank in Dubai. As furious unions have noted, not a single design or construction job has yet been created by the project in the UK, with contracts being “siphoned off overseas”.²⁴  

Rosebank would be a disaster for the climate
The International Energy Agency is clear that new oil and gas developments are incompatible with staying within 1.5C of global warming²⁵ – a limit that we are already overshooting. Burning Rosebank's reserves would produce more than the annual emissions of the 28 lowest-income countries in the world combined or 56 coal-fired power stations running for a year.²⁶

Equinor’s pledges to reduce the climate harm from Rosebank are little more than hot air. The oil and gas giant is touting plans to “electrify” Rosebank as a way of reducing its production emissions.²⁷  However, to the concern of the regulator Equinor has yet to put forward concrete plans. Electrification comes with additional costs and may end up taking electricity from the grid that would otherwise be used to power homes: oilfields West of Shetland, including Rosebank, require the equivalent of  the energy to power 450,000 homes.²⁸

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What you can do 

Sign the Stop Rosebank pledge‍

The Stop Rosebank pledge has been signed by MPs and MSPs that agree with this statement:

“I pledge to oppose the Rosebank oil field and advocate for a properly funded just transition for oil and gas workers and communities. I will advocate to fix the UK's broken energy system and mitigate climate breakdown through real solutions such as scaling up renewables, reducing our reliance on oil and gas and insulating our leaky homes.”

Signing the Stop Rosebank pledge  is a great way to clearly and unequivocally show that you are committed to taking real steps to move us away from oil and gas and towards clean, cheap and stable energy.

You can sign the pledge by emailing action@stopcambo.org. You can also download and print the pledge card here. Taking a picture of yourself with the pledge card and posting on social media is a great way to show that you have signed the Stop Rosebank pledge.

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Act on your pledge by taking the following steps: 

1. Ask a question in parliament 

Suggested interventions:

• Does the Scottish Government agree with scientific consensus that to mitigate the accelerating impacts of climate destruction, there can be no new oil and gas expansion?
• Will the Scottish Government make good on its promise to deliver climate action and work with the UK Government to ensure the nearly 4 billion barrels of oil equivalent in the pipeline of North Sea oil and gas projects stays in the ground? 
• Will the Scottish Government oppose the development of the climate-wrecking Rosebank oil field, as it did against the Cambo oil field? 
• Will the Scottish Government work constructively with the UK Government to bring forward a credible, properly-funded plan for a fair transition in the North Sea that supports workers and communities?
  
  

2.  Publish an op-ed in your local newspaper 

Communicating to your constituents via one of your local papers is a great way to share the message that you are taking action on climate. Experts are on hand to help you in crafting an article, and can provide background information and quotes from campaigners and/or industry experts if you would like to include them. Don’t hesitate to reach out, please contact action@stopcambo.org.uk. 

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3. Talk about what you’re doing to Stop Rosebank/ new oil and gas on social media

Below are some examples of wording you could use in posts.  It’s great to be vocal about the action you’re taking, and posting on social media means your constituents can see and support what you’re doing. 

Option 1 

There can be no new oil and gas expansion if we want to stay within safe climate limits. 

That’s why I’ve signed the Stop Rosebank pledge. I will do what I can to stop Rosebank, and advocate for a properly funded just transition for oil and gas workers and their communities.

Option 2

For a safe climate and affordable energy, we must end new oil and gas expansion.

This means restoring Scotland’s position as a climate leader, and securing a properly-funded plan for a transition in the North Sea that supports workers and communities.

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For more information about Rosebank or questions about oil and gas and the just transition, email action@stopcambo.org.uk. 

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‍References ‍

1. DESNZ. Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES): petroleum. 
2. Harvey, F. Proposed new UK oil and gas fields would provide at most three weeks of energy a year. The Guardian (2023)
3. Walker, P. Scottish business leaders back end to North Sea oil and gas licensing. Insider (2024) 
4. Gosden, E. UK slips in EY ranking of best countries for green investment. The Times (2023)
5. Bol, D. North Sea supported jobs halved in last decade despite Tory support.The Herald (2023)
6. Lawson, A: North Sea oil and gas workers vote to strike amid bumper profits. The Guardian (2023)
7. Platform and Friends of the Earth Scotland: Our Power: Demand Briefing Report. (2023)
8. RGU Energy Transition Institute: Powering up the Workforce (2023)
9. Jones, D. The way the UK taxes oil companies needs to change. Uplift (2024)
10. Wilson, T. Big Oil on course for near-record $38bn in share buybacks. Financial Times (2022) 
11. Wakefield, J and Barnes, Oil and gas turns its back on the UK’s transition (2024)
12. Poynting, M; Rivault, E; Dale, B. 2024 first year to pass 1.5C global warming limit. BBC (2025)
13. Jones, D, Barnes, A. UK faces unique opportunity to prevent 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions from North Sea Uplift (2024)
14. Storm Eunice: Thousands still without power as clean-up could cost 'over £350m' Sky News (2022)
15. Butler, S. Harvest in England the second worst on record because of wet weather  The Guardian (2024)
16. Khan, T. Poll shows voters in Scotland want climate action. Uplift (2024)
17. Cook, J.  New oil and gas field consent was unlawful - judge. BBC (2025)
18. Gov.uk. Policy Paper: Energy Profits Levy — reforms 2024 (2024)
19. Harvey, F. UK planning to launch watered down net zero strategy in oil capital Aberdeen. The Guardian. (2023)
20. Vevers, D. Firm behind Rosebank oil field rakes in 'outrageous' £45,000 per second. Daily Record (2025)
21. Bol, D. Revealed: Oil giant behind Rosebank has secured £400m tax break from Treasury. The Scotsman (2024)
22. Jack, S. Norwegian oil giant cuts green investment in half. BBC (2025)
23. Equinor. Rosebank: Investing in energy security and powering a just transition
24. Vevers, D. Union fury as Rosebank oil field's main offshore vessel being built in Dubai Daily Record (2024) 
25. IEA. Net Zero Roadmap: A Global Pathway to Keep the 1.5 °C Goal in Reach (2023)
26. World Bank. CO2 emissions. (2020)
27. Equinor. Rosebank Environmental Statement. (2022)
28. Savage, M. New windfarm could be used to power North Sea oilfield. The Guardian. (2023)

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