Judge upholds challenge to new North Sea oil and gas licences
An oil rig is moved with tug boats down the Cromarty Firth near Invergordon in the Highlands of Scotland
SCOTLAND’S highest court has upheld environmental campaigners’ legal challenge to the granting of licences for two new oil and gas fields in the North Sea.
Taking their case to the Court of Session in Edinburgh, Greenpeace and Uplift argued that the effects of downstream burning of fuel extracted from the Rosebank oil field, north-west of Shetland, and the Jackdaw gas field, off Aberdeen, had not been considered when licences to exploit them were issued in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
They insisted that this rendered unlawful the North Sea Transtition Authority (NSTA) decisions to grant permissions to oil and gas giants Shell, Equinor and Ithaca on behalf of the then Tory government.
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There is little benefit coming to Scotland or the wider UK from projects like Rosebank or Jackdaw – or indeed renewables – as profits are siphoned out of the country by foreign companies, writes PAULINE BRYAN
