Trump’s Call for UK to Drill in North Sea Underscores Industry Warnings Against Net-Zero Agenda

One oil executive says the U.S. president’s comments may be ‘provocative,’ but the UK’s current policies are crippling jobs, investment, and energy security.

A gas flare burns at the Shetland Gas Plant during its inauguration in the Shetlands, Scotland, on May 16, 2016. Andy Buchanan/AFP via Getty Images

For half a century, the North Sea was the heart of one of the world’s most productive energy industries, before Britain turned its back on fossil fuels in favor of renewables, but now, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would like to see drilling restart.

Trump’s message underscores industry warnings about the economic “vulnerability” of the UK, which industry participants say is created by net-zero policies.

“I strongly recommend to them that, in order to get their energy costs down, they stop with the costly and unsightly windmills,” Trump said in a statement on Truth Social on May 23.

He said the UK should “incentivize modernized drilling in the North Sea, where large amounts of oil lay waiting to be taken” and that the country’s energy costs “would go way down—and fast.”

Trump described Aberdeen, Scotland, as the “hub” of a region with “a century of drilling left,” and criticized Britain’s “old-fashioned tax system” for pushing away investors.

His comments are not out of the blue.

The UK’s political landscape has become increasingly polarized over its net-zero agenda, with debate intensifying both domestically and internationally.

Scottish First Minister John Swinney dismissed the U.S. president’s comments, saying he does not “think it’s a surprise that Donald Trump believes and says what he says about energy issues.”

However, oil executives and industry leaders say Trump is voicing a hard truth—that Britain’s current energy policy is strangling domestic production, deterring investment, and putting national security at risk.

Trump’s comments, which come just weeks after the United States and the UK signed a sweeping trade agreement, represent a direct challenge to the strategy being pursued by the Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband, the Energy and Net Zero secretary, who remain committed to a net-zero transition.

The Labour Party, now in power, has pledged to issue no new oil, gas, or coal licenses. That position builds on the Conservative Party’s 2008 Climate Change Act, which legally commits the UK to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Labour has also retained the Energy Profits Levy (EPL), initially set by the Conservative Party at 25 percent in 2022 and now raised to 38 percent, which taxes oil and gas companies’ profits deemed excessive.

Scotland: the UK’s Energy Powerhouse

Scotland remains the UK’s energy powerhouse, producing the most oil and the second-most gas in Europe, according to NatureScot. Most of this activity occurs offshore, beyond 12 nautical miles from the coastline.

Since the discovery of its offshore reservoirs of crude oil and natural gas in the late 1950s and early 1960s, enough gas was found to prompt the UK to begin shifting from coal for heating.

As the country moves away from fossil fuels and toward a “transition to clean energy,” authorities like the National Grid see potential in the area for offshore wind energy.

Meanwhile, ongoing regulatory uncertainty and the threat of ongoing punitive taxation are deterring companies from exploring or developing new assets, even in areas with known reserves.

In 2024, oil company Deltic Energy blamed “negative political rhetoric” and fiscal uncertainty for its inability to secure financing for a major North Sea gas project.

The North Sea firm said it was pulling out of a project to develop Pensacola, which could contain 326 million barrels of oil.

In 2023, the oil giant Shell made a find in the Southern North Sea, a site perceived to be the largest natural gas field in the North Sea in over a decade.

Overreliance on Imports

Francesco Mazzagatti, CEO of the oil company Viaro Energy, told The Epoch Times by email that Trump’s remarks “may be provocative,” but they highlight a “reality the UK can no longer afford to ignore: our current energy policy is undermining our own national interest.”

The company has 30 fields in the North Sea.

Mazzagatti said that North Sea oil and gas are “not optional; they are essential. ”

“The UK’s overreliance on imports while actively discouraging domestic production is not a strategy; it’s a vulnerability,” he said. “If we continue down this path, we are handing over our energy security to foreign governments and exposing households and businesses to higher, less predictable costs.”

He said that the Energy Profits Levy (EPL) and ongoing fiscal instability “have pushed the UK from a leading investment destination to a cautionary tale.”

“The North Sea still holds immense potential. Ignoring it isn’t progressive, it’s reckless. The EPL must be scrapped without delay; every day it remains in place is another blow to the UK’s energy security and sovereign control over its future,” he said.

In May, the Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce issued a letter after North Sea operator Harbour Energy announced it was cutting 350 jobs, roughly a quarter of its local workforce, in Aberdeen.

“This is not just another redundancy round,” the chamber said. “It’s a flashing red warning light for the UK’s energy security, industrial base, and transition ambitions.”

According to the chamber, more than 10,000 jobs have been lost in the sector since the EPL was introduced.

With the government intending to keep the levy in place until 2030, the group said the UK is “sleepwalking into a future of imported energy, higher emissions, and lost economic opportunity.”

Domestic Production Allows Control Over Emissions: Industry Insider

Steve Brown, CEO of Orcadian Energy, is leading work to secure an 80-million-barrel project, one of the largest undeveloped discoveries in the North Sea, backed by private investments.

“It makes no sense whatsoever to import oil or gas into the UK instead of producing it here,” Brown told The Epoch Times.

“If we produce it here, we create jobs, we improve the balance of payments, and more importantly, we have control over emissions created in producing that oil and gas,” he said.

“It’s going to get consumed anyway, and if we don’t produce it here, it'll get produced somewhere else.”

He acknowledged the government’s desire to lead on climate action but said the current approach risks collapse.

Brown said the UK is trying to show the world “how it can operate without oil and gas.”

“And the flaw with that way is that if you drive down emissions at any cost and you turn off oil and gas, then you’re setting the economy up for a car crash,” he said.

“[The] incremental cost of reducing those emissions is huge, and actually, we will show the world exactly how not to do it.”

The government is facing political difficulties in moving away from fossil fuels to green energy policies.

Upcoming right-wing populist party Reform UK has promised to reverse the government’s ban on fresh North Sea oil and gas drilling if elected to power.

The Tories have also demanded a rethink of the policy.

In March, party leader Kemi Badenoch said she no longer supported Britain’s 2050 target for cutting overall greenhouse emissions in part because she did not believe it was affordable.

The Epoch Times contacted the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and the Home Office for comment on Trump’s remarks and the future of North Sea exploration, and did not receive a response by publication time.