The UK Government will today outline plans to ease restrictions on new North Sea oil and gas licences in its North Sea Strategy.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will publish the strategy alongside the Budget, with further detail from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
The shift softens Labour’s pledge to ban new exploration by allowing projects that can be classed as extensions to existing infrastructure - developments in adjacent fields that can be “tied back” to current fields, an idea first raised at Labour’s conference in September.
The strategy, as reported by BBC News, will not directly address projects like Rosebank and Jackdaw, which are still in regulatory processes, though the wider relaxation is expected to improve their prospects.
However, the sector argues tiebacks alone won’t help without removal of the windfall tax, which is crippling the industry with a tax rate of 78% and costing 1,000 jobs per month.
Russell Borthwick, Chief Executive at Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce, said: "The UK Government has got its North Sea policy badly wrong. This is the first step towards addressing the damage that has already been done. However, while the Energy Profits Levy remains in place, this change in isolation will not stem the loss of jobs and investment in our oil and gas industry.
"Keeping the EPL in place until 2030 will ensure that more jobs will vanish in their thousands, dozens more companies will exit the North Sea over the months ahead and we will lose world-class expertise from the UK for good – just at the time they are needed to deliver the energy transition.
"The Chancellor must signal a shift away from this tax today, and that shift must come in 2026 before it is too late."