With billions of pounds of investment, national energy security and tens of thousands of jobs on the line, the next few months could be defining for Britain’s oil and gas industry.
Companies operating in the North Sea are accustomed to political meddling, but now they are waiting nervously to see if the Labour government will offer a lifeline amid plans to encourage a shift to renewable power and away from hydrocarbons. If not, the bosses of nation’s biggest producers have warned that the pace of production decline will increase, investment will fall and redundancies will follow.
Rachel Reeves has confirmed that Labour’s manifesto pledges, which included an end to new exploration drilling, a further three percentage points on the windfall tax (taking the top rate