Largest untapped UK oil field approved for development amid environmental backlash
A view of Sullom Voe Terminal, an oil and gas terminal in the Shetland Islands on September 2021.
Adrian Dennis | Afp | Getty Images
LONDON — British regulators on Wednesday gave approval for Norway’s energy giant Equinor to develop the controversial U.K. offshore Rosebank field in the North Sea, just off the northwest coast of the Shetland Islands.
The North Sea Transition Authority said it has also given the necessary consent.
The U.K. government said it had given operator Equinor and British energy company Ithaca Energy — which hold respective 80% and 20% stakes in the field — permission to proceed following “extensive scrutiny by the regulators,” including regarding the environmental impact of the development.
Ithaca Energy shares jumped 7% by 9 a.m. London time, following the announcement, with Equinor shares higher by roughly 1%. Rosebank stands as the largest untapped field in the U.K.
Equinor says the project will be pursued in two phases and estimates it will create £8.1 billion ($9.8 billion) of direct investment. The company expects the field’s start-up stage to take place over 2026-27 and estimates that Rosebank’s recoverable resources are over 300 million barrels of oil for its two phases.
“We are investing on our world-leading renewable energy but, as the independent Climate Change Committee recognise, we will need oil and gas as part of that mix on the path to net zero and so it makes sense to use our own supplies from North Sea fields such as Rosebank,” U.K. Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Claire Coutinho said in a statement.
Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said: “We are accelerating renewables and nuclear power, but will still need oil and gas for decades to come — so let’s get more of what we need from within British waters.”
The Rosebank development has faced repeated delays and intense public backlash amid questions over its environmental impact.
Burning Rosebank’s oil and gas would produce over 200 million metric tons of CO2, #StopRosebank campaign activists say, on Wednesday pledging in a statement that the “fight is far from over” and the group will “pressure the UK to reverse this terrible decision, and use every tool we can to stop this field,” as “climate justice demands nothing less.”
Green Party Member of Parliament, Caroline Lucas, echoed these feelings on Wednesday.
“This is morally obscene. It won’t improve energy security or lower bills – but it will shatter our climate commitments & demolish global leadership. Govt is complicit in this climate crime – as is Labour unless they pledge to do all possible to revoke it,” she said on the X social media platform, previously known as Twitter.
The Rosebank development approval comes after Britain in July confirmed plans to issue hundreds of new oil and gas licenses in the North Sea, despite its stated target to decarbonize all of the national sectors of the economy by 2050.
Compounding concerns over Westminster’s commitment to transition, British PM Rishi Sunak last week revealed his government would postpone a ban on the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars by five years, to a new 2035 deadline.
“We don’t support Rosebank,” the opposition Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said in a televised Sky News interview in the wake of the announcement. “We think the priority for the country should be transitioning away from fossil fuels, partly because of the volatility of the price in fossil fuels, and we’ve seen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine just what that’s meant, not just for heating prices, but for electricity, because our electricity system is pinned, it’s matched to that gas price. So real energy security will only come from moving to nuclear, to renewables, to technologies that will insulate us from those pressures.”
Energy security has stepped into the forefront of the European policy agenda after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and subsequent sanctions deprived regional buyers of Moscow’s seaborne crude and refined oil products.
“By approving Rosebank, Rishi Sunak has confirmed he couldn’t care less about climate change. As we’ve heard repeatedly, our world can no longer sustain new oil and gas drilling. And when we’re witnessing scorching temperatures, wildfires, devastating flooding and heatwaves in our seas, it could not be clearer that this is a decision by the Prime Minister to add more fuel to the fire,” said Tessa Khan, executive director of the Uplift activism group, in an emailed statement.
“Rosebank will do nothing to lower fuel bills or boost UK energy security. ”
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![The US’s first solar panels over canals pilot is now online [video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/04/Project-Nexus-solar-canal.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Project Nexus, the first solar panel canopies over irrigation canals in the US, is now online in California, and there are plans to expand the project to other areas.
Project Nexus is a $20 million pilot in central California’s Turlock Irrigation District launched in October 2022. The project team is exploring solar over canal design, deployment, and co-benefits using canal infrastructure and the electrical grid.
India already has solar panels over canals, but Project Nexus is the first of its kind in the US.
The Turlock Irrigation District was the first irrigation district formed in California in 1887. It provides irrigation water to 4,700 growers who farm around 150,000 acres in the San Joaquin Valley.
Project Nexus will explore whether the solar panels reduce water evaporation as a result of midday shade and wind mitigation, create improvements to water quality through reduced vegetative growth, reduce canal maintenance as a result of reduced vegetative growth, and, of course, generate renewable electricity.
The California Department of Water Resources, utility company Turlock Irrigation District, Marin County, California-based water and energy project developer Solar AquaGrid, and The University of California, Merced, are partnering on the pilot. Project Nexus originated from a 2021 research project led by UC Merced alumna and project scientist Brandi McKuin.
Solar panels were installed at two sites over both wide- and narrow-span sections of Turlock Irrigation District canals in Stanislaus County, in various orientations. The sections range from 20 feet wide to 100 feet wide. University of California, Merced has positioned research equipment at both sites to collect baseline data so the researchers can decide where solar will work and where it won’t.
In February 2023, Project Nexus announced it would also deploy long-term iron flow battery storage in the form of two ESS 75kW turnkey “Energy Warehouse” batteries.
You can learn more about Project Nexus here:
Read more: In a US first, California will pilot solar-panel canopies over canals
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