Donald Trump has told Keir Starmer to “open up” the North Sea and “get rid of windmills”, as the President-elect attacked the U.K. Government’s Net Zero energy policy. The Telegraph has more.
In an outburst published on social media, Mr. Trump said the U.K. was making “a very big mistake” by retreating from oil and gas, which clashes with his pledge to “drill, baby, drill”.
The criticism comes amid an exodus of operators from the North Sea, which are ditching the U.K. in protest against the Government’s windfall tax.
This includes U.S. oil and gas producer Apache, which Mr. Trump referred to in his post on Truth Social early on Friday.
The boss of Apache’s parent company APA said in November that it planned to exit the North Sea by the end of 2029 because the windfall taxes imposed on its U.K. profits made drilling “uneconomic”.
Fears over the future of the North Sea have increased since Labour was elected, as Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, has prioritised achieving clean [sic] power by 2030.
However, the Government’s focus on renewables such as offshore wind has put Britain on a collision course with Mr. Trump, who has vowed to expand US and oil and gas production once he re-enters the White House later this month.
In his post on Truth Social, Mr Trump said: “The UK is making a very big mistake. Open up the North Sea. Get rid of windmills!”
Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, announced in the Budget that she would increase the windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas producers from 35% to 38%, and extend the levy by a year.
This led to several North Sea producers warning that the higher tax rate could lead to a sharp drop in investments, while others are exiting the basin altogether. …
The slowdown in the North Sea has emerged as companies are also reconsidering their investments in offshore wind.
Ørsted, which operates 12 wind farms in the U.K., recently cut hundreds of jobs after posting around £2.2 billion worth of losses for 2023.
It also emerged in December that British bill payers had spent £1 billion to temporarily switch off wind turbines last year as the grid struggled to cope with excess power.
Worth reading in full.
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Why should the Telegraph describe this very sensible observation by the President-elect as an “outburst”?
Because the Telegraph isn’t very sensible.
Because the DT is paid to promote the Net Zero lunacy.
It seems to me that Rachel from accounts is an extremely stupid person.
Where 2 tier free gear kier is cynical, memdacious (and a bit thick as well, but not very, probably about on a par with dave cameron the pig fancier) and a deliberate traitor to the British people, Rachel is just boneheaded.
You mean to tell me socialists are economically illiterate?!
What next….?
I believe those that worked with Rachel in Accounts have described here as ‘fucking useless’.
The mistake is now over a decade old.
And Canada… 51st State? Get in line.
Don’t worry, the oil and gas won’t go away and will be a present to our bewildered children of the future. They’ll need a fair bit of it to power the machines required to remove and disassemble the junk windmills and solar panels.
While O&G won’t go away, I think it unlikely to be a significant industry in UK. Once dismantled, which is happening now–look at Aberdeen–difficult to restore if for no other reason than investor indifference and distrust of regulatory, political, and citizenry environment.
As it gets rarer, globally, the price will increase and these fields will likely become viable.
The same happened to the nuclear industry. The UK decided to get rid of its expertise in this, so any experts either went abroad, retired or got other jobs. When it suddenly decided that nuclear power wasn’t such a bad idea after all, the UK no longer had the skill base or workforce to implement it so asked counties such as France and China to help.
Indeed. I know, a now retired man, who worked on the design, construction and maintenance of some of our nuclear plants. He is of a past era now, but people such as him, are sorely missed today.
Sorry to see Apache going. One of their platforms, the Beryl Alpha, was the first offshore installation I set foot on during my time in that industry. They had bought it from Mobil for £1, I believe, and were utilising new technologies to recover what Mobil had left behind. Good crew at the time, and egg/bacon butties at snap.
Erm. No. Not protest. They can make more (or some) money elsewhere. It’s not some tantrum, it’s business.
Yesterday, at the East Midlands Reform Rally, Zia Yusuf (Party Chairman) called the Net Zero lunacy the biggest scam ever perpetrated against British citizens. That message will be made increasingly clear over the course of the Trump Presidency.
There won’t be a Net Zero CONsensus at the next General Election.
Trump has got it right. But the lunatics in charge of our country, are committed to this path of self-immolation. Correction: They will ensure that they are taken care of, but consign the rest of us to immolation.