Oil and gas industry’s emissions strategy

Offshore oil and gas representatives have set out plans to try to reduce emissions as part of Scotland’s net-zero target while warning a no-deal Brexit could cost the industry £500 million a year.

Reacting to Scotland’s target of net-zero greenhouse emissions by 2045, representative body Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) has set out a blueprint of the future, Roadmap 2035, and how it plans to reduce emissions from the production of oil and gas.

OGUK chief executive Deirdre Michie said: “Roadmap 2035 offers a blueprint for how we can continue to meet much of the UK’s oil and gas needs from domestic resources, progressively reduce associated production emissions and develop economy-wide decarbonisation technologies.”

The oil and gas industry’s blueprint also states that warmer temperatures from climate change “have reduced gas requirements for domestic heating” and is part of the 14% drop in demand over the last two decades.

In a section addressing Brexit and the “prospect of no-deal”, OGUK said that outcome “is not in the best interests of this industry or the wider economy”.

Responding to the report, UK Energy Minister Kwasi Kwarteng said: “Roadmap 2035 shows how seriously the UK’s oil and gas sector is taking its mission to decarbonise and support the transition to net zero emissions by 2050.”

However, the plan has been described as “lobbying” by the Scottish Greens because it proposes maximum extraction of fossil fuels.

The party’s energy spokesperson, Mark Ruskell, said: “In this plan, the industry has actually committed to keeping production above one million barrels of oil equivalent per day.”

Scottish Greens attacked plans to continue extraction.