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Lord John Browne, the former chief executive of BP, has called for a halt to new drilling permits in the North Sea, implicitly endorsing the Labor Party’s position on fossil fuels.
Writing in the Financial Times, he warns that political parties will be judged on their approach to climate change in the upcoming general election.
“A key test for the parties running in these British elections is whether they have serious plans for the country’s green energy transition,” he wrote. “What will they do to combat climate change and the existential threats of famine and mass migration?”
Browne, who headed oil giant BP from 1995 to 2007, said Britain would need oil and gas for many years to come and so drilling in existing fields in the North Sea should continue. Licenses that have already been granted should also be allowed to continue, he added.
“But beyond that we must stop,” he wrote. “Such a move will reinforce our intention to move to net zero.” Developing the last “very limited” oil and gas reserves left in the North Sea would make little difference to energy prices or UK energy security, he argued.
While few companies plan to explore the North Sea for more oil, British oil and gas industry grandee Browne’s support for Labor’s policies is one of the strongest signals yet that time is running out for the region .
BP discovered the first gas field in the North Sea in 1965 and struck oil in Forties, the second largest oil field in the basin, in 1970, changing the company’s fortunes. BP sold the field to Apache for $812 million in 2003, as oil giants began to withdraw from the region in search of bigger prizes elsewhere in the world.
Browne, a crossbench fellow, joined venture capitalist group General Atlantic in 2021, where he works on climate change investments. He did not explicitly back Labour, Britain’s main opposition party which has a big lead in the polls ahead of the July 4 general election.
However, his position on ending new permits is in line with that of Sir Keir Starmer, the Labor leader, and his shadow energy minister, Ed Miliband.
Responding to Browne’s piece, Miliband said: “Lord Browne’s intervention adds his voice to the chorus of energy experts, including the International Energy Agency and the Climate Change Committee, who are making it clear that new oil and gas permits are not the way to go for Great Britain.
“The only way to increase our energy security, strengthen our economy, protect our climate and guarantee good long-term jobs here in Britain is to manage existing licenses while sprinting to build clean energy industries of the future.”
Labour’s position on ending the new North Sea licensing has angered some of the union’s biggest supporters, with the GMB describing the policy as “naive”.
Last month, Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, warned Labor against banning new North Sea permits without a clear plan to safeguard jobs, warning that workers in the industry were at risk of becoming “the miners of our generation” .
A veteran oil and gas investment banker said several deals he was working on had been put on hold until after the election due to political uncertainty over the future of the North Sea. On Wednesday, Jersey Oil & Gas told investors it would delay work on the Buchan field, which is in the North Sea, for at least a year.
A separate Labor policy for a tougher windfall tax on the sector has led to threats from the industry that it could halt work on some existing oil fields. Browne made no mention of taxes, but did extend a small olive branch to energy companies, suggesting that the estimated £40 billion it would cost to decommission oil and gas fields could be avoided by adding more infrastructure, such as drilling platforms, in place. .