A leading energy academic has urged regulators to approve the Jackdaw gas field, arguing the UK will become more reliant on higher-emissions imports if the North Sea project does not proceed.
The Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning (OPRED) consultation on the Jackdaw development closes on Monday, with the project awaiting environmental consent.
Jackdaw is one of two major North Sea developments being advanced by Adura, alongside the Rosebank field west of Shetland. The company says the projects together represent £10.8 billion of investment and will generate £28.7 billion in gross value added over their producing lifetimes.
Professor John Underhill, the University of Aberdeen's Interdisciplinary Director for Energy Transition and Professor of Geoscience and Energy Transition, said the UK faced a widening gap between domestic gas production and demand.
He said: “The fundamental problem is that UK gas production is falling faster than gas demand. Two decades ago we were self-sufficient, but our import dependency had doubled since 2019. Production dropped by 3.4 per cent in 2025 while demand was broadly stable, down only one per cent. If that gap is not filled by new domestic supply, it must be filled by imports. So, given we still need gas, the key questions are: where do we get it from and what’s the justification for doing so?”
Adura estimates Jackdaw could supply more than 6% of UK gas demand by this winter, equivalent to the annual heating needs of 1.4 million homes.
Prof Underhill said: “Six per cent of UK gas supply is not marginal; it is material. All of Jackdaw’s gas would enter the UK network through existing infrastructure. Adura estimates it could supply the equivalent of 1.4 million homes. In other words over half the homes in Scotland could be served by it when Jackdaw is at peak production. In a market where domestic output is declining, dismissing that volume as insignificant ignores how energy systems actually work.”
He also argued that importing liquefied natural gas carried a significantly higher supply-chain carbon footprint than UK production.
Prof Underhill said: “Gas creates the same combustion emissions wherever it is produced, so the relevant comparison is how the gas we will still use reaches the consumer. LNG has to be liquefied, shipped over long distances and regasified. The NSTA finds that importing LNG has, on average, almost four times the supply-chain carbon intensity of producing gas on the UK Continental Shelf. Refusing Jackdaw would not make gas demand disappear; it would risk replacing domestic gas with a higher-emissions supply chain, something that is worse for the global climate.”
Concluding his case for the development, he said: “Taking the evidence in the round – declining production, persistent demand, import exposure, higher LNG supply-chain emissions, infrastructure, tax revenue generation and jobs – Jackdaw should receive environmental consent. The alternative is not a gas-free Britain; it is a Britain that imports more of the gas it continues to need, which requires reliable supply routes and carries a higher carbon intensity.”