The UK needs more North Sea gas; imports from the US are the real enemy | Nils Pratley
Terrific news: despite turmoil in the strait of Hormuz, the UK will have sufficient supplies of gas to meet demand this summer, said National Gas, which operates the gas transmission system, on Monday.But contain your relief.The summer months of lower usage were never likely to be a moment of stress.Gas via pipelines from the UK and Norwegian fields in the North Sea can handle virtually all UK demand when most of the 24m households with a gas connection have their heating turned off.Little liquefied natural gas, or LNG, the stuff that arrives on ships, is needed during the summer.
The real supply challenges are for the future – not just this winter, but over the next couple of decades.The appealing notion that the rapid rollout of renewables will soon eliminate the need for gas is, sadly, a delusion.Gas for electricity generation is indeed in long-term decline but represents only a quarter of the UK’s overall demand for gas.The biggest slice, at 37% in 2024, was for domestic consumption, according to government data, and replacing all those gas boilers with heat pumps is not a quick job, especially not at the UK’s current sluggish pace.Nor are wind, solar and batteries about to make gas-fired power stations obsolete: the government’s clean power 2030 plan dictates that the entire 35 gigawatts of gas generating capacity must be retained as backup.
Zoom out and the energy department’s data for 2025, released just before Easter, showed gas demand “broadly stable” for the third year in a row,It made up about half of the UK’s 75,2% dependency on fossil fuels in 2025, again about the same as in 2024,Transition to a cleaner future is essential but takes time,So one question – critical in the context of the raging debate about more North Sea drilling – is where the gas molecules should come from.
Here’s Sir Dieter Helm, Oxford University energy economist, on a recent podcast from the Chatham House thinktank: “Gas is 35% of our total energy supply.It’s big.And we are going to go on burning gas for the next decade or two at least, or probably beyond that.That’s realism.So the question is: what’s the best way of securing those supplies in the least polluting way and at the lowest cost to consumers? That is a perfectly sensible structure to think of the problem.
The first thing you’d say is: ‘we don’t want any LNG because LNG is much more polluting than pipeline gas’.”How much more polluting? According to numbers from energy analysts Wood Mackenzie, showing the carbon intensity of the UK’s gas supplies in 2024, pipeline gas from Norway’s modern North Sea platforms is the least polluting in terms of emissions from production and supply (so-called scope 1 and 2 emissions).Then comes UK North Sea pipelines.But then it’s a leap to LNG, where the process of liquefying and regasification adds emissions.And the worst of the lot is LNG from the US because much of its gas is shale gas, where some methane escapes during fracking.
Wood Mackenzie’s forecasts for UK’s gas imports out to 2045 also show that on the current trajectory, the UK looks set to max out on LNG from US if domestic supplies diminish.Why? Well, gas from the Middle East is optimised to flow to Asia, whereas US cargoes head to Europe.It’s no use wishing for more Norway gas because those supplies are not inexhaustible.On Wood Mackenzie’s forecasts, the UK will rely on US LNG for over 60% of its overall gas supplies as soon as 2035.“Recent history highlights the risks of reliance on a single country,” it comments.
Therein lies the case for more drilling for UK North Sea gas.You do it to be less dependent on the US, a country whose president seems to regard energy as a tool of foreign policy.And you do it to avoid LNG’s greater emissions.One usual objection runs along line of “ah, but North Sea output is sold on the international market so doesn’t make us more secure.” There are two obvious replies.
First, pipeline gas that goes straight into the UK gas network is plainly more secure than a cargo from across the Atlantic.Second, if the objection is price, then the UK, as Helm points out, is free to negotiate long-term fixed-price supply contracts with producers as part of new licences.It is how the North Sea operated in the early years; a similar set-up may make sense in the final ones.None of which is an argument against renewables and nuclear generation.Electrification is the long-term direction.
But gas is plainly in the mix for a couple of decades yet.Industry body Offshore Energies UK reckons reliance on LNG could be contained to 6% in 2035 under a more pragmatic approach to UK North Sea licensing.Its projections may be optimistic, but the ambition sounds better than becoming a semi-forced buyer of US LNG for a couple of decades.Once the current political agonising is over, one assumes the Jackdaw gas field, equating to 6% of current domestic production, will be approved.At that point, there should be a proper debate about North Sea gas policy that moves beyond the misleading framing of “renewables or gas” and asks what a sensible procurement policy would be during the period in which the UK is still consuming gas.
One of the lessons of the Iran war is the need for more national resilience, including “secure, homegrown energy,” argued the prime minister on these pages last week.If that’s his view, two conclusions surely follow.First, keep electrifying to reduce gas usage and make best use of renewables and nuclear.Second, while gas is still on the system, don’t make the UK an energy prisoner of the US.Quite apart from the benefits for taxes, balance of payments and jobs, the UK needs more North Sea gas.
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