Britain's Dirty Secret At Sea - North Sea Oil Giants Responsible For Millions Of Tonnes Of Preventable Emissions

6th February 2021

In the North Sea, oil companies are releasing the equivalent of a coal power station's worth of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year by burning off or dumping unwanted natural gas into the atmosphere.

While our North Sea neighbours Norway banned unnecessary flaring in 1972, the UK has no such ban - the rate of flaring on the UK continental shelf is therefore a shocking 11 times higher than in Norway and twice the North Sea average. "It is frankly embarrassing," said shadow business secretary Ed Miliband, "...and undermines our international credibility as hosts of COP26."

For the first time, Unearthed can reveal the oil and gas companies responsible for venting and flaring the most from 2015 to 2019, the most recent years for which data is available. Among the biggest emitters are Repsol Sinopec (a joint venture between Spanish and Chinese state-owned oil companies), French oil giant Total, and British oil majors Shell and BP.

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