UK Government in court over marine impacts of oil & gas licences
Press Release Date: March 26, 2025
Location:
Contact:
Daisy Brickhill | email: dbrickhill@oceana.org
- Oceana UK is challenging the government in the High Court over 28 licences for oil and gas exploration. The full 82 licences issued in the licensing round are expected to mean extraction of 600 million barrels of oil equivalent.
- Over two thirds of the licences are inside marine protected areas, home to wildlife from porpoises to puffins. Despite this, oil spills were not considered in the impact assessments for these licences.
- By defending decisions that ignored the severe harm to ocean health caused by these licences, the government is aligning itself with profit-hungry oil companies, rather than a thriving future for UK seas and communities, says Oceana.
LONDON, 26-27 March – Oceana UK will take the government to court over 28 licences for oil and gas exploration, which the charity says will do deep and lasting harm to marine wildlife and climate stability.
The previous Conservative government granted the licences unlawfully, Oceana will argue, because it ignored expert advice from its own nature advisors. It also failed to account for the severe impacts on marine life from accidental oil spills and the deepening of the climate crisis caused by the emissions from burning the extracted oil and gas.[1]
The Labour government is defending these decisions, rather than dropping its legal defence and allowing the courts to decide, as it did in the recent Rosebank oilfield case. In doing so, the government is overruling the severe harm to ocean wildlife that would be caused by these licences, and aligning itself with profit-hungryoil companies, rather than a thriving future for UK seas and communities, says Oceana.
Marine protected areas at risk
Three quarters of the licences (21 of 28) are inside designated marine protected areas, home to wildlife such as harbour porpoise, grey seals and puffins. Despite this, the potential for accidental oil spills was excluded from assessments of the environmental impact of the licences. This is a serious omission, says Oceana, as there were more than two oil or chemical spills every day last year from oil and gas developments in UK waters. These incidents resulted in over 82,000 kg of oil spilling into the sea.
As well as direct damage to rare marine habitats, such as deep sea sponges and cold water corals, oil and gas exploration will mean seismic airgun surveys that emit an ear-splitting noise that can affect marine life from dolphins to commercial fish species. Impacts include disruption of mating and feeding and can even lead to strandings and death.
climate crisis
The licences were granted by the Conservative government in May 2024 and are the final batch granted in the 33rd licensing round. The full 82 licences in the licensing round are expected to result in the extraction of 600 million barrels of oil equivalent, according to government data.
The need for environmental impact assessments to account for emissions caused by burning the fossil fuels extracted is now a precedent in law, established by the Finch ruling last year. Numerous judgements have now been decided on this basis, including the recent quashing of the Rosebank oilfield approval.
Oceana will argue that by deepening the climate crisis, these licences will lead to severe impacts on protected marine habitats, which have not been taken into account. Global heating has already resulted in unprecedented marine heatwaves in UK waters, and is accompanied by rising acidity and declining oxygen. These pressures can lead to the mass mortality of fish, seabirds and marine mammals.
Granting these exploratory licences while overruling the environmental consequences of both exploration and potential development is not only unlawful, but short-sighted and will serve no-one, leaving despoiled habitats and betrayed communities, says Oceana.
If the government is committed to no new licences as they claim [2], defending these licences in court is a waste of taxpayers’ money that could better be spent investing in a just transition to renewable energy that would lower household bills and increase energy security, says Oceana.
Naomi Tilley, Campaign Lead for Oceana UK, said: “Today in court we will see government lawyers sit down on the side of Big Oil, and in opposition to those who represent the ocean, nature, and our collective future. Labour has made a welcome commitment to ending new oil and gas licences and to building a future powered by clean, reliable sources of energy. They now need to hold true to that and choose the right side of history. The steady drip-feed of pollution from oil and gas developments has well-documented and severe impacts on marine wildlife ranging from cancers to stillbirths, and across species from porpoises to cod. This is on top of the pressures of the climate crisis. We need to prioritise thriving seas and flourishing communities over short-term profits and greed.”
Carol Day, Senior Environmental Solicitor at Leigh Day, said: “These oil and gas licences could have serious and potentially irreversible impacts on sensitive marine habitats and species. The point of the assessment process is to ensure these possible dangers are understood and factored into decision-making. Our client feels that this assessment process failed to acknowledge important expert advice on these dangers, and they welcome the opportunity to explain to the court why they believe the decision to go ahead with granting these licences was deeply flawed.”
Dr Daria Shapovalova, Senior Lecturer in Energy Law, University of Aberdeen, said: “It is paramount that decisions on oil and gas licensing and developments are made in accordance with the regulations and with full understanding of the impact they may have on the environment. These rules are designed to ensure our most important and vulnerable wildlife and habitats get the protection they need.”
Notes for editors
[1] Oceana UK says the ‘Appropriate Assessments’ for the licence blocks, published by the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning (OPRED) for the Secretary of State under the Habitat Regulations 2017, were unlawful. The grounds of the claim are, that in approving these 31 licences the then Secretary of State:
- Failed to consider the impact of potential oil and gas industry accidents (including oil spills and discharges) on marine protected areas and their conservation features.
- Failed to consider the ongoing impact of the climate crisis on the marine environments set to be impacted by these licences, and failed to consider the full climate impact of the licensed activity, including scope 3 emissions (indirect emissions, such as from the use of the extracted oil and gas).
- Failed adequately to assess the cumulative impacts of the licensed activity on the relevant sites.
- Failed to pay due regard to the advice of the Joint Nature Conservation Committee and Natural England who objected to the licences and asked for improvements to in the assessments in relation to the matters raised by several of the grounds above.
Oceana is also proposing to add a fifth ground, that the government failed to assess the impacts of four of the licences that were ‘straight to the second term’ (i.e. no exploration is needed and the company can more straight to appraisal and development). This failure was despite acknowledgement from the previous government that had any assessment been completed, it would likely have identified adverse effects on protected areas.
[2] The licences at the heart of Oceana’s case are called ‘Production Licences’. Despite their name, the licences are for exploration stages as well as future production phases (for which they would need further consent), giving the company exclusive rights to a specific area of seabed (‘blocks’, shown in the figure). If a company wishes to proceed to build an oil rig and begin production it must complete a further Environmental Impact Assessment and seek further consent from the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. This consent should never be guaranteed, regardless of a change in government.
[3] Oceana is represented by Carol Day (Senior Environmental Solicitor) and Rowan Smith (Senior Associate Solicitor) at public interest law firm Leigh Day. Leigh Day has instructed Zoe Leventhal KC, Kate Cook and Emma Foubister at Matrix Chambers.