Clear shift in the types of investment opportunity in the UK North Sea
Time running out for UK North Sea
Smaller projects provide opportunities, but basin maturity and policy shifts amid political uncertainty signal a significant decline by the end of the decade
The UK North Sea has been battered and bruised. First by Covid, then by environmentalists, and finally by a traditionally supportive Conservative government bringing in the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) to 2028—and, just this March, announcing an extension to 2029. The decision to approve drilling at the $3.8b Rosebank project in the West of Shetland gave a confidence boost to the fragile UK North Sea oil sector towards the latter half of 2023. Containing around 300m bl of oil and owned by Norway’s Equinor and the UK’s Ithaca Energy, it may be one of the last large undeveloped discoveries in UK waters. But this should be viewed as a stay of execution rather than any last hurrah. “Post-Rosebank,
Also in this section
17 February 2026
The 25th WPC Energy Congress, taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 26–30 April 2026, will bring together leaders from the political, industrial, financial and technology sectors under the unifying theme “Pathways to an Energy Future for All”
17 February 2026
Siemens Energy has been active in the Kingdom for nearly a century, evolving over that time from a project-based foreign supplier to a locally operating multi-national company with its own domestic supply chain and workforce
17 February 2026
Eni’s chief operating officer for global natural resources, Guido Brusco, takes stock of the company’s key achievements over the past year, and what differentiates its strategy from those of its peers in the LNG sector and beyond
16 February 2026
As the third wave of global LNG arrives, Wood Mackenzie’s director for Europe gas and LNG, Tom Marzec-Manser, discusses with Petroleum Economist the outlook for Europe’s gas market in 2026
