Britain Is Said to Approve New Gas Drilling in the North Sea

The British government is set announce on Wednesday the approval of a major new natural gas drilling project in the North Sea, according to two people briefed on the announcement. The gas field, known as Jackdaw and located off the coast of Scotland, would be the site of the first gas extraction in the North Sea since a government moratorium on new drilling was imposed in 2024. The approval is expected to face criticism from environmental groups, which have said any new fossil fuel production would undermine Britain’s climate change pledges. An application to drill for oil at a separate field known as Rosebank, off the Shetland coast of Scotland, was still under consideration, according to the two people, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the announcement. A spokesman for Andy Burnham, the prime minister, declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Britain’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero said the agency intended to make an announcement on Wednesday but declined to provide details. A spokesman for Adura, a joint venture between Shell, the British oil giant, and the Norwegian energy company Equinor, declined to comment on Tuesday. Equinor wants to develop both Jackdaw and Rosebank. The Jackdaw gas field holds an estimated 200 million barrels of oil equivalent, which would be used in Britain and fed into the gas network. The approval of the project would represent a recognition of Britain’s continued reliance on natural gas even as it moves toward greater use of renewable energy. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .