Rosebank oil field – post-approval briefing

The UK Government’s regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority, has given consent for the Rosebank oil field to begin development. Rosebank is the biggest undeveloped field on the UK Continental Shelf.

Containing nearly 500 million barrels of oil equivalent, it is three times the size of the controversial Cambo oil field. The science is clear that there can be no investment in new oil and gas extraction in order to stay within the 1.5ºC target set out in the Paris Agreement.

Developing Rosebank will lock us into the broken energy system that is delivering record-breaking profits for companies like Equinor and pushing millions into fuel poverty, while UK taxpayers carry almost all of the costs of developing the field. New oil and gas fields will not deliver on energy security, as the majority of oil from the North Sea is exported.

We urgently need a just transition to an energy system built on renewables and energy efficiency, which starts by ending oil and gas expansion now.