Boris Johnson’s government wants “every last drop” of oil and gas to be extracted from the North Sea, cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has suggested.
Amid calls for a windfall tax on oil and gas companies, the senior Conservative figure claimed the fossil fuel giants’ profits had to be protected “so they get every last drop” out of the North Sea.
“We want to get more oil out of the North Sea, we want to get more gas out of the North Sea,” Mr Rees-Mogg told LBC. “We need to be thinking about extracting every last cubic inch of gas from the North Sea.”
The minister for Brexit opportunities dismissed climate campaigners’ warnings that a renewed push for fossil fuels would ruin the UK’s chances of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.
“2050 is a long way off,” Mr Rees-Mogg said. “We’re not trying to become net zero tomorrow. We’re going to need fossil fuels in the interim. We should ours that we have got available.”
No 10 confirmed that Boris Johnson’s “energy security strategy” will finally be published on Thursday. The Independent understands that the government will confirm its backing for a new round of North Sea exploration licences.
The prime minister has said he wants to “remove barriers” to increased North Sea fossil fuel production following the spike in energy prices and the desire to end reliance on Russian gas.
Separately, six North Sea projects are expected to be given approval by the oil and gas regulator. But climate campaigners have warned that plans to approve new drilling sites will “blow” the UK’s net zero climate target.
The Uplift told The Independent last month that extracting and burning all the oil and gas from six sites awaiting approval would produce a total 205 million tonnes of CO2 emissions – the equivalent of almost half the UK’s yearly total emissions.
Resisting Labour, Lib Dem and Green party calls for a windfall tax on oil and gas, the government has claimed that allowing the firms to keep record profits will help them invest more in renewable energy.
However, Mr Rees-Mogg suggested the firms had to be protected so they could invest more in fossil fuel drilling. “Bear in mind they are very heavily taxed already,” he told LBC.
He added: “If they don’t get these profits in the future … [it] will make the marginal, new wells less attractive – so they will pull out of the investment. They won’t necessarily even look for the existing fossil fuels.”
Asked about Mr Rees-Mogg’s “every last drop from the North Sea” comments, the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “Certainly it’s right that domestic-produced oil and gas will play an important part of the transition to net zero.”
The government’s energy plans have been repeatedly delayed as ministers are divided on the possible end of the fracking ban and a shift to more onshore wind turbines.
Mr Johnson is expected to bow to pressure from Tory MPs to block new onshore wind farms, with No 10 indicating that strict planning constraints would remain.
Mr Rees-Mogg said he was “very much in favour of going nuclear” – claiming it was more consistent form of energy supply than wind power.
The cabinet minister also described the idea of reopening shale gas fracking sites as “quite an interesting opportunity” – comparing the fracking threat to “a rock fall in a disused coal mine”.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer has said the UK needs a proper energy strategy from the government rather than going “cap in hand” to dictators presiding over fossil fuel supply.
Asked by broadcasters whether his shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds was right to say over the weekend that the country needed to prepare for energy rationing, Sir Keir said: “We don’t need energy rationing.”
The Labour leader added: “We do need an energy strategy. And going from one dictator in Russia for your oil and gas, cap in hand to another dictator in Saudi Arabia is not an energy strategy.”
“We need a strategy that is fast-forwarding on renewables and on nuclear, retrofitting so that we can actually keep our houses and our homes warmer … we don’t have it from this government,” said Sir Keir.
