July 16, 2026
Good, bad or ugly: Let’s make the right choice for the oil and gas transition
BY: Oceana WebAdmin
Topics: Oil and Gas
By Iona Macdonald, a former oil and gas worker with 25 years’ experience in both onshore and offshore operations.
As the scrum of the Aberdeen South byelection subsides, a clear victor has emerged: the PR offices of the oil and gas companies. They have worked to present this as a clear dichotomy: on the one hand, more drilling and everyone carries on as usual, on the other, an end to drilling and a desolate wasteland in the northeast.
These cartoon-ish caricatures serve no-one other than those hoping to make a quick profit in the short term. The people of Aberdeen South have had to endure almost every senior politician in the land trying to woo them as energy and climate becomes a political football, but the one thing that everyone agrees on, that is chemically and geologically indisputable, is that we are talking about a finite resource. Oil and gas reserves are not regenerating at the same rate we extract them; they took millions of years to form.
That means that wherever you land on the political spectrum, you have to accept that there will be a transition. No matter how much the oil and gas industry tries to convince us to bury our heads in the sand of the North Sea, the transition is coming.
Indeed, it is already at our door: between 2014 and 2024, the number of jobs supported by oil and gas more than halved, despite the Conservative government of the time issuing hundreds of oil and gas licences in this period. My job was one of the ones to go.
Where next?
A fair transition for oil and gas workers – both for offshore staff and the large majority who remain onshore – is urgently needed and won’t simply happen by itself. It needs strategy and support. It will take a collaborative effort across numerous sectors, spearheaded by government (local and national), to drive the action required.
We must prevent the brain drain of all that invaluable skill and experience, which would be a needless waste, human tragedy, and serious risk for the UK economy. Offshore wind can doubtless be an important part of the mix – but again we should consider this as part of the wider picture. If we commenced research and manufacture of renewables technology in the north east, for instance, that could provide vital onshore and offshore jobs.
Rust to riches
Alongside the green tech of the future, the government should be considering the endgame for oil and gas infrastructure. Early and effective decommissioning could support 25,000 jobs across the UK supply chain while also preventing the damage to ocean life caused by degrading infrastructure, recent analysis from Oceana UK and Redwater Insights has shown. Rather than walking away from their old assets and their workers, the oil companies should be held to account to pay up and clean up. They have, after all, made literally billions in profits from our shared resources in the North Sea.
We must also consider where these jobs are. We need jobs in the communities, cities and regions, which, like Aberdeen, have been reliant on the oil and gas industry for decades. Meanwhile, out in the sea, areas specifically protected for wildlife are littered with old infrastructure that needs removing. Decommissioning delivers on both counts, since most of the recovered infrastructure would be landed in the cities and towns where oil and gas jobs were originally developed.
A mix of solutions
Leading the development of decommissioning solutions, as part of a mix of combined solutions whilst building in fairness and justice for workers would put our communities back at the forefront of a pioneering industry, creating skills and technology that will be needed for future wind power decommissioning as well as other ageing oil fields around the world. We could switch from the barely managed decline we see today, to active restoration, moving beyond the boom-and-mostly-bust cycles of fossil fuel extraction.
The just transition cannot and should not be used as political point scoring. It is about real people’s lives and everyone’s collective future on this planet. The transition is coming; as to whether it is good, bad or ugly – the choice is ours.
This was originally published in The National and has been re-published here with permission.