“By 2030 it’s likely to be above 70pc and by 2035, we could be as high as 85pc dependent on imports.”
That growing gap between North Sea supplies and UK demand will have to be filled. The only way to do that is by liquefied natural gas (LNG), all of which will have to be imported.
The US is Britain’s main supplier of LNG, but we also buy increasing amounts from Qatar, Egypt, Algeria, China, Equatorial Guinea and Turkey – all of them authoritarian states. And last year alone LNG imports rose 24pc.
So as North Sea output declines, the UK’s hopes of breaking away from “petrostates and dictators” look likely to go into reverse. How did a country that was once self-reliant in energy end up in such a mess? And have ministers even realised?
Gas stockpile plans
One sign that they are waking up came last month when it emerged that Miatta Fahnbulleh, the new Energy Secretary, is considering plans to acquire a large ship that would become the UK’s newest LNG import terminal.
The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero also confirmed plans to create a government-controlled stockpile of natural gas that could be drawn on in emergencies.
Both schemes recognise that the Government’s plans to reduce our reliance on gas are faltering, leaving the UK at increasing risk of price spikes and shortages.
Recently published North Sea Transition Authority data show the physical reality of the North Sea decline.
The UK has about 172 offshore gas fields operating in 2026, but by 2030 around 62 are scheduled to close, leaving just 110. By 2035, another 40 will be gone.
Some of that decline is natural. The North Sea is a mature basin, and output was gently falling by about 5pc a year up until 2022.
But after Rishi Sunak’s government adopted Miliband’s policy of a windfall tax, the annual decline surged to around 15pc as offshore operators scrambled to quit the North Sea.
That could get even worse. If, for example, John Healey carries out his threat to extend the windfall tax, many more North Sea fields would become uneconomic and shut down.
But it’s not just the UK’s own North Sea decline that it should be worrying about.
‘Norway is vital’
Norway, the supplier of about a third of the UK’s gas, is facing the same problem of natural decline.
Britain’s gas needs are not constant. They rise and fall with the seasons. But in the winter, when demand is highest, up to 90pc of the gas burnt in the UK is Norwegian.
That reliance is becoming a problem. A report from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate warns that Norway’s oil and gas supplies peaked last year at around 230 bcm and are expected to plummet to as low as 110 million cubic metres by 2035.
Nikolai Astrup, a Norwegian MP and a key figure on its parliament’s finance committee, said the UK should already be looking for new energy sources. He says: “Right now, Norway is Europe’s largest and most predictable supplier of gas, and all the gas and oil we produce is sold to the UK and Europe. Norway is therefore vital to European energy security.
“But it is a geological fact that the Norwegian Shelf is mature and that the fall in production will be very sharp from 2035 onwards.”
