Gas and oil exploitation in the North Sea breaks into Scotland’s election campaign in the face of the Hormuz blockade

The global energy crisis has burst strongly into the campaign for elections to the Parliament of Scotland this Thursday. The main parties have reopened the debate on the granting of new licenses for the exploitation of gas and oil fields in it North Sea and have maintained a strong confrontation over the possibility of reverse climate policies promoted in recent years to reduce the high cost of living. The extraction of non-renewable resourcesa source of wealth for decades in cities such as Aberdeen – in the northeast of Scotland – has been used by right-wing parties to appeal to voters at a time of instability in the markets international energy companies.

Both the Conservative Party like the ultra party Reform UK have opted to give the green light to the oil field of Rose bankthe largest project under development in the North Sea, and also to the exploitation of gas reserves in Jackdawnear Aberdeen. The two projects were paralyzed by the courts last year when they considered that the environmental impact of the carbon emissions was larger than initially declared. They are currently under review, waiting for the Labor Government to decide whether to definitively approve them or not.

The blocking of Strait of Hormuz and the consequent increase in precio of the energy has put the Labor Party and to Scottish National Party (SNP), who until now have defended the progressive closure of gas and oil extraction projects to prioritize the energy transition. However, the instability of the markets has forced the representatives of these parties to moderate your speech already keep one ambivalent positionaware that any false move can have negative consequences on their electoral results.

Pressure from the energy sector

Advocates of new licensing argue that oil and gas drilling will help reinforce energy security of Scotland and United Kingdom as a whole. Enrique Cornejodirector of energy policy at Offshore Energy UK —an association that represents more than 400 organizations and companies in the sector— assures that the exploitation of new deposits will help the United Kingdom to reduce dependency from third countries.

“The war in Iran is a very clear sign that the UK must do everything it can to produce its own energy resources“, he explains to EL PERIÓDICO. “It is very important that the Governments of the United Kingdom and Scotland make it a priority to produce all possible forms of energy because that makes us less vulnerable. There is no doubt that production is in a phase of natural decline, but there are still many resources in the North Sea that can be exploited if the energy policies are more favorable“he adds.

Rejection from environmentalists

Representatives of the sector demand that the Government put an end to extraordinary taxes on profits as soon as possible (windfall tax) and that allows increasing production to increase revenue at the same time, but the environmental organizations They warn that the priority of these companies is to pay the lowest possible taxes.

“Because reserves are in decline, the sector relies on very low taxes to remain profitable. Until the Government introduced the windfall profits tax in 2022, the UK had one of the lower nominal tax rates of the oil and gas sector around the world,” says Tessa Khanexecutive director of the environmental organization Upliftone of the most prominent in the country.

The detractors of the exploitation of new deposits oil and gas producers in the North Sea argue that if the UK increases production, this will not affect the final price that consumers pay, since this is set according to the international market and not according to domestic production levels. Even so, the possibility of reversing the emissions neutrality objectives is increasingly occupying political debates and will, in all likelihood, have a decisive weight in the result of this Thursday’s elections in Scotland.

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