Donald Trump’s latest attack on renewables has reignited calls to drill the North Sea for oil – despite research showing it won’t lower energy bills.
Donald Trump has unleashed his latest attack on renewables, branding the UK “crazy” for not boosting oil extraction in the North Sea.
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The British government ended exploration licences last year, meaning companies can no longer get permission to search for new oil and gas reserves in untapped areas. This doesn’t mean that all current drilling projects have stopped.
However, as Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz – one of the world’s biggest fossil fuel chokepoints that carries around one fifth of global oil supplies – continues, calls to U-turn on the historic ban have gotten louder.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves says the government is working “intensely” to allow further drilling by opening up “tie-back sites”, which permit drilling on or near existing fields. It comes after the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecast that the war on Iran will hit the UK hardest of all the world’s advanced economies due to how much energy it imports.
Trump tells UK to ‘drill baby drill’
“Europe is desperate for energy, and yet the United Kingdom refuses to open North Sea Oil, one of the greatest fields in the world,” Trump wrote earlier this week on his social media platform Truth Social.
“Aberdeen should be booming. Norway sells its North Sea Oil to the UK at double the price. They are making a fortune.”
Trump went on to argue that the UK is “better situated” for North Sea drilling, adding: “Drill, baby drill! It’s absolutely crazy that they [the UK] don’t, and no more windmills!”
What Donald Trump gets wrong about the North Sea
The UK has already extracted around 4.1 billion tonnes of oil since 1975, with the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) projecting a further 218 million tonnes will be collected by 2050 from existing fields.
According to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), these projections suggest that new drilling could only yield a further 74 million tonnes, equivalent to 1.7 per cent of the total that could be extracted from 1975 to 2050. This means that 93 per cent of the oil and gas that is likely to be produced from the North Sea has already been extracted.
A separate analysis from campaign group Uplift found that opening major new fields in the North Sea would make almost no difference to the UK’s reliance on gas imports.
The Jackdaw field, which is one of the biggest unexploited gasfields in the North Sea, would displace just two per cent of the UK’s current import of gas, while the Rosebank field, which mainly contains oil, would displace only around one per cent of the UK’s gas imports.
Uplift says this would still leave the UK almost entirely dependent on supplies from Norway and other nations.
Oil and gas prices are also set by global markets, not discounted for British consumers – and gas extracted from UK waters can be exported to the highest bidder – meaning increasing domestic production won’t necessarily lead to lower costs.
Will drilling the North Sea lower energy bills?
Amid pressure to drill the North Sea, the war on Iran has also ignited a race towards homegrown renewables – which are less impacted by geopolitical tensions.
The UK has been scrambling to improve its energy grid to cope with new solar and wind farms, which are often located in remote areas.
Renewables generated a record 52.5 per cent of the UK’s electricity in 2025 – the second consecutive year in which they have exceeded 50 per cent. Last month (26 March) British wind energy generation also hit a new high of 23,880 megawatts, enough power to supply around 23 million homes.
An analysis from the University of Oxford found that a UK fully powered by renewable energy could save households up to £441 (€510) a year on their energy bills.
In comparison, maximising oil and gas extraction from the North Sea would only save households £16 (€19) to £82 (€95) per year – and this would rely on tax revenues collected being distributed to households to offset their energy bills.
Dr Anupam Sen, co-author of the analysis, said the idea that “draining” the North Sea would make the UK more energy secure and significantly cut household bills is “sheer fantasy”.
Earlier this year, 10 European countries – including the UK – pledged €9.5 billion for a landmark commitment to deliver 100GW of joint offshore wind projects across shared North Sea waters by 2050. This is enough electricity to power around 134 million homes.
