Change windfall tax to make £137bn by 2050, Chancellor told September 1, 2025 Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been urged to reform the windfall tax in a move that could boost the economy by £137bn by 2050. Ahead of the start of its conference in Aberdeen this week, trade body Offshore Energy UK (OEUK) released a report claiming replacing the energy profits levy next year with a profits-based mechanism [...]
Ed Miliband forced to look again at North Sea oil and gas June 19, 2025 The UK government is mulling over a change to the law to oil and gas projects in the North Sea in a drive to lower energy bills. Michael Shanks, a minister working under energy secretary Ed Miliband, will be visiting Scotland on Thursday with a decision set to be made on the government’s intervention on [...]
North Sea windfall tax causing ‘irreversible damage’ says oil giant May 27, 2025 The boss of Enquest has slammed the windfall tax on oil and gas firms as doing “irreversible damage” to the industry and “driving job losses across the sector”. Amjad Bseisu, Enquest’s chief executive, called for the North Sea tax to be scrapped in an operations update on Tuesday after claiming it makes the UK a [...]
Trump condemns UK net zero push May 23, 2025 Donald Trump has publicly criticised the UK’s net zero policy, saying it is disincentivising oil drilling and needlessly inflating energy prices. In an unusual intervention, the US President said that the UK’s North Sea reserves still had “a century of drilling left”, which if tapped would help bring costs down, “and fast”. “I strongly recommend [...]
Centrica: British gas owner to sell stake in North Sea gas field to Ithaca Energy May 20, 2025 Centrica has announced plans to sell off a big chunk of its holding in the Cygnus gas field in the southern North Sea. The deal will see Spirit Energy – a subsidiary of Centrica – offload its 46.25 per cent stake in the site for around £215m to Ithaca Energy. Centrica, which owns British Gas, [...]
Orsted axes Hornsea 4 offshore wind project May 7, 2025 Ørsted has announced plans to ditch the Hornsea 4 offshore wind project in a big blow to the UK’s clean power ambitions. The Danish renewable energy company said it would incur break-away costs of between 3.5bn to 4.5bn Danish krone (£400m to £512m) as a result of the decision. Ørsted said the 2,400MW project had [...]
Why the UK can’t get a grip of its energy crisis April 14, 2025 A months-long cost-of-living crisis, state bailouts of consumer energy bills, endless planning rows, judicial interventions and now the near-collapse of Britain’s only manufacturer of virgin steel all show different sides to the UK’s ongoing energy crisis. Its dependency on foreign imports, poor planning of infrastructure and lack of control over soaring bills means the extent [...]
UK government plans to end North Sea windfall tax March 5, 2025 British oil and gas drillers could face a new tax regime following the energy crisis, which pegs levies to fluctuations in global oil and gas prices. The mechanism is intended to replace the notorious “windfall tax” and was outlined in a consultation on the North Sea published on Wednesday. The consultation also seeks to unravel [...]
Cut taxes for BP and Shell to protect UK from Trump’s trade war, Rachel Reeves told February 6, 2025 Oil giants such as BP and Shell who operate in the North Sea should be given huge tax breaks to help protect the UK against Donald Trump’s burgeoning trade war, Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been told. Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce is calling on the UK government to reduce the 78 per cent tax [...]
PMQs: Badenoch says businesses ‘abandoning North Sea’ due to Starmer February 5, 2025 Businesses are “abandoning the North Sea” because of Sir Keir Starmer’s decisions, Kemi Badenoch has claimed at PMQs, as he she criticised the “signal he is sending to investors”. Her comments came after a Scottish court ruled that green lighting the Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields was unlawful, following a court battle brought [...]