The United Kingdom is allowing a proposed gas drilling project in the North Sea to move forward, a major reversal in the country’s climate change policy, which previously banned new fossil fuel drilling in the region.
The sign-off on the project, known as Jackdaw, had been expected for months, as new Prime Minister Andy Burnham faced intense pressure from the fossil fuel industry in the U.K. and from the Trump administration to overturn the North Sea drilling ban.
U.K. Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh approved the project Wednesday, saying it would start supplying gas to homes and businesses by the end of the month. Fahnbulleh said the project moved forward in large part due to the country’s energy crisis, which she said has been triggered by the conflict in the Middle East and has reinforced efforts to expand domestic energy production.
Jackdaw is one of two major proposed drilling projects off the coast of Scotland that the fossil fuel industry has sought to move forward, the other being the Rosebank project.
In early 2025, the Court of Session in Edinburgh overturned license approvals for gasfield projects that were issued in 2022 and 2023.
At the time, the court said the approvals were unlawful and failed to fully assess the environmental impacts of the projects — such as the greenhouse gas emissions generated by the burning of oil and gas.
As part of the ruling, however, the court permitted the developers of the two projects, Shell and Equinor, to continue work such as drilling wells, as the government considered any future oil and gas production in the region.
Wednesday’s decision did not directly address the Rosebank license.
The legal challenges for the drilling projects coincided with the U.K.’s accelerated push to decarbonize and reduce the country’s reliance on fossil fuels.
The U.K. aims to hit net-zero emissions by 2050 and has moved to reduce fossil fuel development by lowering incentives and blocking future projects. In 2024, the Labour government committed to not permitting any new oil and gas drilling licenses in the North Sea.
The U.K. government also sought to suppress oil and gas development by increasing taxes on those profits from 35% to 38%, bringing the total tax rate for firms operating in the North Sea to around 78%, according to the Financial Times.
Fossil fuel lobbyists have said that increased oil and gas drilling will dramatically reduce the U.K.’s reliance on foreign sources of energy.
Since then, however, ministers have acknowledged that fossil fuel production will continue to play a critical role in supporting local energy demand.
In March 2025, Offshore Energies UK estimated that an additional 2 to 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent could be available in the North Sea by 2050. Any significant increase in oil production in the region could provide the U.K. with greater domestic reserves, as the nation looks to reduce its reliance on the Middle East.
And last summer, the U.K. government released new guidance related to environmental impact assessments for offshore oil and gas developers — and notably did not shun the fossil fuel industry.
Over the summer, Burnham also expressed an openness to approving more oil drilling in the North Sea, saying he planned to take a “pragmatic approach” regarding the region.
“When people are struggling, we can’t ignore that,” he said, according to Bloomberg.
The government’s decision Wednesday does hand a partial win to environmentalists and climate activists as it does not allow the issuing of new exploration licenses for drilling activities in the North Sea.
UK PRIME MINISTER HINTS AT APPROVING NORTH SEA DRILLING AFTER TRUMP PRESSURE
President Donald Trump has been pressuring the new U.K. government to do just that, claiming over the summer that Burnham told him that he would be opening up the North Sea entirely.
“If you use the North Sea, the U.K. will be a really rich country,” Trump said in July. “I cannot get the point across. The new gentleman, when I spoke to him, said he’s going to open up the North Sea.”