Equinor hope to develop Rosebank near BP’s Clair Ridge improvement (pictured) which has been in operation since 2018
The controversial Rosebank offshore improvement off Shetland has been granted consent by regulators.
Located 80 miles of west of Shetland, Rosebank is the UK’s largest untapped oil field and is estimated to comprise 500 million barrels of oil.
Development and manufacturing consents have been given to homeowners Equinor and Ithaca Energy, following the acceptance of an environmental assertion.
A call on its improvement had been repeatedly delayed.
Last month 50 MPs and friends from all main events raised considerations the oil field may produce 200m tonnes of carbon dioxide.
They wrote to then vitality secretary Grant Shapps urging him to dam Rosebank, including that almost all of the price of improvement can be shouldered by the taxpayer.
It comes after the federal government stated it might problem lots of of recent licences for oil and fuel exploration within the North Sea.
A spokesperson for the oil and fuel regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), stated: “We have approved the Rosebank Field Development Plan which allows the owners to proceed with their project.”
They added it had been awarded “in accordance with our published guidance and taking net zero considerations into account throughout the project’s lifecycle”.
Ithaca Energy and Equinor have beforehand stated if manufacturing began in 2026, then Rosebank may account for 8% of the UK’s whole oil manufacturing between then and 2030.
It has been predicted that Rosebank – situated 80 miles of west of Shetland – may produce 69,000 barrels of oil a day at its peak, and about 44 million cubic toes of fuel per day in its first 10 years.
Gilad Myerson, government chairman of Ithaca Energy, stated: “Rosebank stands as the largest undeveloped field in the UK, and with the receipt of development consent from the NSTA, we are now poised to embark on a journey that will not only provide critically important domestic energy but also ignite substantial economic impact.”
