UK lobbyists press Burnham for oil field that will create barely any jobs

Oil and gas lobbyists are desperate to open a new North Sea gas field and are reportedly pressuring Andy Burnham for the go-ahead.

Yet energy industry documents show the proposed new Jackdaw field will only create 27 full time jobs. These include an environmental impact assessment filed by the oil field’s owner Adura. Adura is a joint venture between Shell and Norway’s Equinor.

The assessment says:

Over the lifetime of the field there would be a consistent level of employment averaging at nearly 500 jobs a year in direct, indirect and induced employment – this includes 273 direct jobs which exist on the Shearwater host installation and [an] additional 27 Jackdaw-specific jobs.

The Guardian reported:

The fossil fuel industry, along with the Conservatives, Reform UK and sections of the Labour party, is lobbying Andy Burnham, the incoming prime minister, for Jackdaw and Rosebank, an oilfield west of Shetland, to be given the go-ahead.

Andy Burnham can’t justify a new field for 27 jobs?!

Campaigners are arguing that the economic pay-offs cannot justify the new expansion. Angharad Hopkinson from Greenpeace, which found the shocking figures, said:

Fossil fuel cheerleaders have repeatedly defended new oil and gas developments by claiming they are vital for employment. Those claims look increasingly difficult to justify when the developer’s own documents tell a very different story.

Hopkinson added:

[This] confirms it’s never been workers who stand to gain most from projects like Jackdaw – it’s fossil fuel companies and their shareholders. If this is the best case they can make for more oil and gas under a collapsing climate, it’s a case that’s run out of road.

Andy Burnham, who is set to be appointed as British prime minister on Monday, is allegedly preparing “to announce new drilling”.

Tessa Khan directs the campaign group Uplift. She told the Guardian:

It would be a mistake if the first thing Andy Burnham does as prime minister is cave into the demands of the profiteering oil and gas industry.

Khan added:

These are companies that have made obscene profits, while our energy costs have skyrocketed. New North Sea drilling will not take a penny off our bills, it will just make a handful of executives and their shareholders even richer.

North Sea oil jobs have been in decline for 20 years. Keir Starmer’s Labour party came to power on a promise of no new oil or gas licences. Burnham, a gimmicky politician who has wangled the prime minister position on easy mode, looks set for a stiff first test of what principles he can muster.

Featured image via Corey Arnold/ National Geographic

By Joe Glenton

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