Geology could crush hopes of extracting all North Sea’s oil and gas

<p>The remaining fields tend to be smaller, more remote and more technically challenging to drill into</p><p>North Sea oil is becoming a hot topic. During his recent state visit, US president Donald Trump <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/north-sea-donald-trump-keir-starmer-prime-minister-president-b1248498.html">urged UK prime minister Keir Starmer to “drill, baby, drill”</a>. Meanwhile, Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/30/tories-would-maximise-north-sea-oil-and-gas-extraction-badenoch-expected-to-say">promised to “maximise extraction”</a> and Reform UK has said drilling for more North Sea oil and gas would be a “day one” priority. The appeal of reducing dependency on foreign energy imports is strong, but relying on the North Sea fields filling the energy gap has one big problem: there is not enough oil and gas down there.</p><p>Oil and gas production in the North Sea <a href="https://theconversation.com/plans-to-maximise-extraction-of-north-sea-oil-and-gas-would-soon-run-into-geological-limits-264614">peaked in 1999</a> and has since more than halved. The easy discoveries have gone and the remaining fields tend to be smaller, more remote and more technically challenging to extract. Writing in <a href="https://theconversation.com/plans-to-maximise-extraction-of-north-sea-oil-and-gas-would-soon-run-into-geological-limits-264614">the Conversation</a>, the energy expert Dr Mark Ireland, from Newcastle University, said: “Even if a future government relaxes exploration licensing rules, geology will remain the bigger constraint.”</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/sep/24/geology-could-crush-dreams-extracting-all-north-sea-oil-gas">Continue reading...</a>