Liz Truss will reportedly sign off on a push for more North Sea oil drilling if she wins the Tory leadership election, prompting criticism from environmental campaigners.
Amid growing public dismay over rising energy bills, Truss’ political advisers are believed to be discussing proposals to issue up to 130 new drilling licenses, which normally take nearly three decades to produce oil and gas.
Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng and Brexit Opportunities Minister Jacob Rees-Mogg have met with oil and gas companies to discuss how to secure energy supplies this winter, the Times reported.
Discussions reportedly involve importing more gas from Norway in the short term, while increasing domestic production. The climate change panel has previously said it takes an average of 28 years for an exploration license to lead to oil and gas production.
Greenpeace UK Chief Scientist Dr Doug Parr said ramping up drilling in the North Sea would do little to reduce energy bills.
“Unleashing a drilling frenzy in the North Sea is not a plan to help bill payers, but a gift to the fossil fuel giants who are already making billions from this crisis,” he said.
“New oil and gas could take a quarter of a century to extract, eventually be sold at global prices and have no real impact on energy bills, but still fuel the climate crisis.”
He said Britain’s reliance on gas was among the factors driving the bills and called for faster action to promote new wind and solar projects, as well as improve energy efficiency by insulating UK homes, which are among the most leaky in Europe.
Sign up for the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk
He added: “If Liz Truss really wants to help cash-strapped households, she should freeze the energy bill along with additional financial support for the poorest households, partly funded by appropriately taxing the astronomical profits of energy companies. oil and gas”.
Truss’s North Sea plan comes amid a continent-wide scramble to secure gas supplies before winter, after Vladimir Putin began throttling pipeline flows amid a geopolitical standoff for his invasion of Ukraine.
The UK is more dependent on gas than most European countries and has very little storage following the closure of the Rough facility off the Yorkshire coast in 2017. Labor has previously called on Truss to explain his part in the ‘acquiescence of the government to the closure of Rough.