Will 'unlawful' Rosebank and Rosebank be stopped? Not yet

Over the past week, in the Edinburgh court, lawyers from Greenpeace and Uplift have waged a legal challenge against the consent given to Rosebank and Jackdaw. At the centre of this challenge are what are called “Scope 3” emissions, the greenhouse gas produced by the burning of oil and gas rather than their production.

Prior to a Supreme Court decision, on Finch vs Surrey County Council, earlier this year, such emissions were not considered in the Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) in applications for consent. Now, that omission is deemed unlawful - and, as a result, the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero is currently consulting on EIA guidance.

But the developers of Rosebank and Jackdaw, Equinor, Ithaca Energy and Shell,  have said they acted in “good faith” since at the time of application there was no requirement for Scope 3 to be considered.

The Court of Session hearing, in front of Lord Ericht, finished on Friday, and no decision is expected till early next year, leaving both campaigners and developers are on tenterhooks. One possible option is that the UK Government could be compelled to make a fresh decision on consent. If that is the case, in the interim the developers want to see no pause to works and drilling.

Greenpeace and energy transition campaign group Uplift  would like to see consent permanently withdrawn, and works paused while the impacts of the oilfields are reassessed.

But why are Scope 3 emissions so crucial? And how do these emissions from Rosebank and Jackdaw fit into the bigger picture of the UK’s Net Zero strategy and  global efforts at emissions reduction?

Recognising Scope 3  is about acknowledging who or what is responsible for fossil fuel emisssions - that it is  not only those who consume and burn it, but also, crucially, those who produce and make profit from it.

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Environmentalists to challenge Rosebank and Jackdaw oil and gas fields in court

Integrating that impact into a consent system is a key means of recognising the direct link between oilfield development and the pollution generated by its product - and with Rosebank, the largest untapped oilfield in UK waters, that impact is significant.

According to Uplift, Scope 3 emissions from Rosebank could be as much as the emissions of the 28 lowest income countries.

However, though these emissions are substantial, they are also, Equinor has argued, not adding to the UK’s overall emissions in the years to come, since they are already factored into calculations of oil and gas demand - and they are being produced within the context of a UK oil and gas basin that has been in production decline for years.

Frankie Boyle hosted a panel for Uplift before the judicial review (Image: Andrew Perry)

A defence often given of new oilfields is that UK domestic supply is already failing to meet demand, leading to the import of fossil fuels from other countries. The logic is that more domestic production would not increase UK emissions because we would just be swapping our own supplies with those from elsewhere.

When it comes to Rosebank and Jackdaw a key question is how much of that oil and gas would meeting our own demand and how much, as campaigners have argued, will be exported. 

It's also the case that what happens in the North Sea can be seen as part of what happens globally.  We should therefore consider what these oilfields mean for Net Zero and climate in a global context. What if we look at UK oil and gas reserves as part of that international picture, in which each new oilfield in our declining oil and gas production is playing a part in a wider pattern of increased oil and gas?

What we see then is that Rosebank is one of many new fields in the world. We see that, in spite of the expansion of renewables, fossil fuel emissions are still rising and the past year has seen an explosion in oil and gas developments. We can see a UK that is part of that. 

How much oil production has been ramped up was reported in a recent  International Energy Agency paper which showed that surplus global supply capacity is set to reach unprecedented levels by 2030, due to an increase of world oil production capacity.

There is no graph of supply dwindling in relation to demand in a global context. In fact, when it comes to oil (rather than gas)  production is expected to outstrip demand growth over the 2023-2030 forecast period and “inflate the world’s spare capacity cushion to levels that are unprecedented, barring the Covid-19 period”.

It is also, with Donald Trump in the Whitehouse, calling “Drill, baby drill”, unlikely to stall.

At the Court of Session in Edinburgh this week, the legal representatives of the energy companies emphasised the work already underway and investment committed.

More than three-quarters of a billion pounds, said Shell's advocate, Christine O'Neill KC, has gone into the development of Jackdaw. Work has already begun on the oilfield. The steel jacket, the subsurface structure that will support the platform is already in place, and drilling into the reservoir has started.

While Rosebank is not so progressed, Equinor, John MacGregor KC related,  is also already heavily comitted. The Norwegian state energy company's representative said it had invested £2.2bn in the project, which “provides employment for thousands”.

Delay, he said, could cost £7-800 million.  A pause in the works,“is going to place this project, at best, in limbo for years".

He also outlined the need to consider various forms of public interest.  

“There is a public interest," he noted, "in regulatory decisions being made in an orderly and predictable manner. There is a public interest in major investment projects proceeding in a timely fachion. There is a public interest in job creation. There is a public interest in energy security. There is a public interest in maximising economic recovery from UK oil. I do not shy away from that last.”

These are important interests to be weighed - as are the jobs provided by the industry. But the reason that these energy companies have found themselves in court is because one interest -  the public interest of climate change and the emissions produced by fossil fuels had been committed from the consenting process.  It is set to be part of it now. 

Whatever Lord Ericht's decision, at least now the  question of Scope 3 is out there.