Four years after its first approval was struck down in court, the Jackdaw gas field off north-east Scotland has been cleared to produce. Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh signed off on the project, and on Wednesday the North Sea Transition Authority issued formal consent. Ministers say gas should start reaching homes and businesses before October is out.
The field sits about 150 miles out from Aberdeen. Its operator, Adura, is jointly owned by Shell and the Norwegian state-controlled Equinor. Rather than building a new platform, it is tied back to the existing Shearwater hub, with the gas then piped ashore to St Fergus in Aberdeenshire. The government expects it to lift domestic gas output by about six per cent at peak over a working life of up to eleven years, with a projected economic boost of around £2.9 billion.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham framed the decision as a response to the energy shock caused by the war in the Middle East. Alongside it, the Treasury unveiled an Energy Wealth Fund, seeded with £2 billion of North Sea tax receipts, to back renewable and low-carbon schemes. Even so, the energy secretary admitted households should not expect cheaper heating in the coming months.
The original 2022 consent was quashed by Scotland’s Court of Session in January 2025 because the climate impact of burning the extracted gas had not been assessed. That analysis has now been carried out.
Reaction split along familiar lines. Unions and Aberdeen business groups welcomed the certainty, while the Scottish Greens called it “climate vandalism” and Greenpeace and Oxfam accused ministers of undermining their own climate goals. Still awaiting a verdict is Rosebank, the much larger oil field west of Shetland.
