North Sea could power Britain for decades if Miliband's shutdown reversed
The North Sea could meet almost half of Britain's oil and gas needs for the next 25 years if Ed Miliband scrapped his ban on new drilling, a report has claimed.
Forecasts from Offshore Energies UK (OEUK), a trade body, have said that a reversal of the Energy Secretary's policy could unlock at least an extra 3bn barrels of oil from UK waters.
Crucially, this would boost overall North Sea supplies to 7bn, meaning they account for nearly half of the 15bn barrels of oil and gas needed to power the UK between now and 2050.
David Whitehouse, chief executive at OEUK, said Mr Milliband's ban on new drilling was putting Britain at the mercy of foreign importers, including those in the US.
He said: 'Energy security is national security. In an increasingly volatile world the widening gap between the energy we produce and what we import matters.'
'We are on a journey to net zero but we will need oil and gas for decades to come. It makes sense for the UK to produce as much as it can itself.'
As well as drawing supplies from the North Sea, the UK also relies on vast imports from both Norway and the United States.
This has sparked concerns given the erratic policies of Donald Trump, who has called on the UK and Europe to buy more oil and gas from the US to avoid tariffs.
It also comes just months after Mr Miliband officially announced his ban on all new drilling in the North Sea, which forms part of his bid to help Britain hit net zero by 2050.
He has sought to justify his policy by claiming that oil and gas are largely to blame for higher energy bills.
He told The Guardian last week: 'The worst impact on living standards we have seen for generations was as a result of our exposure to fossil fuels and fossil-fuel markets controlled by petrostates and dictators when Russia invaded Ukraine.'
However, Robin Allan of Brindex, which represents smaller oil and gas across Britain, said: 'LNG imported from the US and Qatar doesn't provide UK jobs or taxes or cut carbon emissions.
'Locking the UK into reliance on imported gas from around the world makes no sense when we have the gas on our doorstep.'
Following OEUK's latest report, a spokesman for Mr Miliband's Energy Department said: 'Oil and gas production will continue to play an important role for decades to come, with the majority of future production in the North Sea expected to come from producing fields or fields already being developed on existing licences.
'New licences awarded in the last decade have made only a marginal difference to overall oil and gas production.'
Tessa Khan, executive director of environmental NGO Uplift, added: 'The oil and gas industry is peddling a fantasy. The North Sea is an ageing basin with declining reserves that are now very expensive to extract. This is a matter of geology.
'Most of what is left in the North Sea is oil not gas, 80pc of which the UK exports. The UK has burned most of its gas, a fact that new licencing won't change.'
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