Landmark Ruling Causes Turmoil in Onshore Oil and Gas – Drill or Drop?

In 2024 the country’s highest court ruled  on the climate impact of UK onshore oil and gas production, with tumultuous results for the industry.

The judgement by a majority of Supreme Court justices on 20 June 2024 found that greenhouse gas emissions from the use of hydrocarbons must be assessed before any decisions could be made on production plans.

The case, brought by campaigner Sarah Finch on behalf of the Weald Action Group, has already had widespread repercussions for oil and gas producers and beyond.

The consequences are likely to continue into 2025 and affect carbon-intensive industries across the UK.

The case dated back to 2019 when Surrey County Council granted planning permission for production and more drilling at the Horse Hill oil site, operated by a subsidiary of UK Oil & Gas plc (UKOG), near Horley.

Ms Finch had taken her challenge to the High Court and the Court of Appeal. In June 2023, she argued at  the Supreme Court that the council had unlawfully failed to consider greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the use of the oil.

Almost exactly a year after the Supreme Court hearing, the judgement in her favour made headlines around the world.

Ms Finch said:

“Weald Action Group has always believed it was wrong to allow oil production without assessing its full climate impacts, and the Supreme Court has shown we were right.

“This is a massive vindication of what we’ve been saying. It is a huge victory for Horse Hill. The residents there are not going to have to face the tanker traffic, the noise, the air pollution, the light pollution from the big development that was planned at Horse Hill. That permission is quashed.

“But it is not just Horse Hill. It means in future that every fossil fuel development of the size to need an environmental impact assessment will have to assess the emissions from the fuel when it is burnt. That is now clarified. That is the law.

“That is going to make it a lot harder for anyone to open a new oil field or coal mine and it has implications for projects that have already been agreed but are under legal challenges.”

The judgement clarified the law on environmental impact assessments and how to assess the climate effect of the use of oil and gas, known as downstream, indirect or scope 3 emissions.

It established several key legal principles:

Downstream emissions are an indirect effect of a development and an inevitable consequence of oil extraction

There are no geographical limits on environmental effects of a development

Greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming wherever they occur

Downstream emissions can be calculated

Emissions from burning extracted oil are within a developer’s control

It is misguided to suggest that planning authorities are unable to address climate change

Public participation is important.

The author of the judgement, Lord Leggatt, said:

“You can only care about what you know about.”

The result, which has become known as the Finch judgement, was the first time the Supreme court had ruled on climate change issues. It was also the first time the UK’s Office of Environmental Protection, established in 2021, had intervened in a Supreme Court case.

Repercussions for Horse Hill

Demonstration against unlawful oil production at Horse Hill. Photo: XR

The Supreme Court quashed the Horse Hill planning permission, preventing further production and drilling. Despite this, the company continued to produce oil until October 2024, when it stopped voluntarily.

Surrey County Council confirmed that Horse Hill oil extracted after the Supreme Court judgement had been produced unlawfully.

This month (December 2024), the county council also stated that the Horse Hill site should be cleared of “all plant, machinery, operational development and miscellaneous paraphernalia not necessary for security and/or environmental monitoring purposes”.

The quashed planning permission now returns to Surrey County Council to redetermine. More information will be published on the application and there will be a public consultation, the council said.

An enforcement investigation remained underway at the time of writing but no formal enforcement action has been taken, the council confirmed.

Within weeks of the Horse Hill Supreme Court judgement, the repercussions also began for other sites.

Other impacts of the Finch judgement

Biscathorpe oil production

On 11 July 2024, the local government secretary and Egdon Resources conceded a High Court challenge against oil production and more drilling at Biscathorpe in the Lincolnshire Wolds.

Planning permission for 15 years of oil extraction and a new well was quashed.

Lincolnshire campaigners, who had opposed development at Biscathorpe for 10 years, were delighted. Mathilda Dennis, of SOS Biscathorpe, said the decision showed that the “unequivocal link between fossil fuel extraction and climate change can no longer be ignored”.

The Biscathorpe consent had been granted in November 2023 by a planning inspector, who overturned an earlier refusal by Lincolnshire County Council.

The inspector had accepted that the plans failed to comply with some local policies. But he said national need for oil was enough to allow the proposal in the Wolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB).

Ms Dennis, supported by SOS Biscathorpe, had taken the case to the High Court, a fortnight before the Supreme Court judgement. Her lawyers argued that the negative impact of oil extraction on the landscape and the climate outweighed any claims that the site’s uncertain and negligible oil output would contribute to national energy security.

Arrangements are now underway for a new appeal.

Cumbrian coal mine

The UK’s first new deep coal mine for 30 years was also a casualty of the Finch judgement.

Planning permission for the colliery, near Whitehaven, in Cumbria, was quashed on 13 September 2024. West Cumbria Mining has not appealed.

The mine had been approved by the Boris Johnson government in December 2022.

Friends of the Earth and South Lakes Action on Climate Change took the government to court, arguing that it had not taken account of the full carbon impact of the mine.

A week before the hearing at the High Court in July 2024, the new Labour government dropped its defence of the coal mine, saying it had been approved due to an “error of law”.

The would-be operator, West Cumbria Mining continued to defend the case.

But in a High Court judgement, Mr Justice Holgate accepted four grounds of the legal challenge. These included the need to assess the 99% of carbon emissions that would come from burning the coal.

Wressle expansion

Planning permission to expand the UK’s second largest onshore oil producer was also formally quashed, on 12 November 2024.

Consent for more drilling and production at the Wressle field near Scunthorpe had been granted by North Lincolnshire Council on 13 September 2024. This was more than 12 weeks after the Supreme Court ruling.

Campaigner Sandie Stratford threatened to seek a judicial review because the council failed to consider the likely downstream emissions when it granted planning permission.

In October 2024, the council said it would not defend its decision in court.

A partner in the proposal, Union Jack Oil, said the downstream emissions resulting from the expansion would now be assessed. No new application or information has yet been published.

Saltfleetby gas drilling

Proposals were also withdrawn in September 2024 to drill four new wells across two wellsites at Saltfleetby, in Lincolnshire, the UK’s biggest onshore gas producer.

The site operator, Angus Energy, hinted in an interview with DrillOrDrop that it might have to account for downstream emissions from the extra gas production at Saltfleetby.

A company spokesperson said in October 2024 that the application was being formatted and would be resubmitted shortly. So far, no new application for Saltfleetby expansion is listed on the Lincolnshire County Council planning portal.

Jackdaw and Rosebank

The repercussions of the Finch judgement also spread to the North Sea.

On 29 August, the government announced it would not defend judicial reviews, sought by Uplift and Greenpeace, of the development consent for the Rosebank oil field off Shetland and the Jackdaw gas field off Aberdeen.

A statement from the energy security department said this was because of the Supreme Court judgement in the Horse Hill case.

The case began at the Court of Session in Edinburgh in November 2024. Judgement is expected in 2025.

Decommissioning and restoration

Access road to Cuadrilla’s Preston New Road shale gas site, near Blackpool

Another key issue of 2024 has been the failure of two oil and gas operators to meet planning commitments to plug and abandon wells and restore sites.

The industry’s opponents have said these cases justified their fears that operators would find ways to avoid the costs of decommissioning sites.  

Cuadrilla at Preston New Road

The only company to frack horizontal wells onshore in the UK is now in breach of its planning permission because it failed to meet the deadline to plug and abandon two shale gas wells.

Cuadrilla had been required to decommission the wells at its Preston New Road site near Blackpool by 8 December 2024.

But work had not started by that date, even though the deadline for completion had previously been extended by 18 months.

The company had told planners decommissioning would finish by March 2024.

But earlier this month (December 2024), Cuadrilla blamed the delay on a shortage of suitable rigs.

It said the work was now expected to take until the end of March 2025 – but this finish date could slip if the rig was not available.

The news has disappointed but not surprised campaigners against Cuadrilla’s operation. They have urged the county council to take enforcement action against the company.

Jonathan Haine, the council’s head of development management and planning policy, said:

“The timescale that they have provided goes beyond the dates contained in the current planning permission for the site so we are currently considering our position regarding what further action might be required to ensure the restoration of the site within a reasonable timescale.”

Cuadrilla also has until the end of December 2024 to meet a separate plug and abandonment deadline set by the industry regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA).

UKOG at Broadford Bridge

UKOG’s mothballed oil site at Broadford Bridge in West Sussex.
Photo: planning application

Campaigners are also urging West Sussex County Council to insist on the speedy restoration of the suspended oil site at Broadford Bridge, near Billingshurst.

Opponents of Broadford Bridge celebrated the refusal by councillors in March 2024 to extend the life of the site, which had been dormant since 2018.

Planners told the site operator, a subsidiary of UKOG, to restore the site “as a matter of urgency”.

Nine months on, the wells have not been plugged or abandoned and no work has begun on returning the site to farmland.

In September 2024, the council said it was in “active dialogue” with UKOG. More recently, the council said it would take whatever steps on enforcement that it “considers expedient/necessary”.

Small-scale fracking

Three operators announced plans this year to use small-scale forms of fracking to improve oil and gas flows from onshore wells.

The operation, sometimes called proppant squeeze or reservoir stimulation, injects fluid and proppant at pressures high enough to fracture rocks surrounding the well bore.

It is not affected by the moratorium on fracking because the volume of liquid is below the statutory limit.

But it requires a hydraulic fracturing plan, approved by regulators, describing how induced seismic activity would be avoided or mitigated.

Europa Oil & Gas at Burniston

Campaigners opposed to small-scale fracking at Burniston. Photo: DrillOrDrop

Europa has proposed three small-scale fracks at a new gas field at Burniston in North Yorkshire.

The company said the total operation could use up to 1,200m3 of fluid and a single proppant squeeze would use up to 500m3. (The statutory volume for associated hydraulic fracturing is a total of 10,000m3 or 1,000m3 for a single frack).

The resulting fractures would spread 100m horizontally either side of the borehole and 20-60m vertically either side, Europa said.

More than 100 people attended an information meeting about the Burniston proposal. Europa said it would submit a full planning application by the end of 2024. So far, the application has not been published on North Yorkshire Council’s planning portal.

Egdon Resources at Wressle

Egdon Resources planned to  carry out small-scale fractures as part of its expansion of the Wressle oil site in North Lincolnshire. (See Wressle expansion above for more details)

Planning permission was formally quashed in November 2024. No new planning application has been published by North Lincolnshire Council, but Egdon has applied to the Environment Agency for a variation to its environmental permit.

Rathlin Energy at West Newton

Rathlin Energy described its proposal for small-scale fracks at the West Newton A site in East Yorkshire as “reservoir stimulation”.

The company has applied for a variation to its environmental permit to allow the operation to go ahead.

The Environment Agency extended a public consultation for a further three weeks, until Friday 24 January 2025, after pressure from local people. It also added a drop-in information event on Thursday 9 January 2025 at Sproatley Village Hall from 12 noon-4pm.

Other legal challenges

In 2024, the Court of Appeal refused to consider a further challenge to gas exploration in the Surrey village of Dunsfold. UKOG got a third time extension (this time until 30 June 2025) to start drilling its proposed exploration well.

Villagers in Balcombe, in West Sussex, won the right to go to the appeal court in their legal challenge to a well test. The case is due to be heard in January 2025.

Friends of the Earth, ClientEarth and the Good Law Project successfully took the government to court for the second time in two years over its plan to meet legally-binding climate targets. Mr Justice Sheldon allowed four of the five grounds of the challenge and ruled that the plan was unlawful.  The former chair of the Climate Change Committee, Lord Deben, supported Friends of the Earth with a witness statement. The government has a year in which to revise the plan again.

Industry news

England onshore oil and gas licences. Map left shows 2015 14th round licences in green and the then existing licences in beige. Map right shows all current remaining licences. Sources: NSTA and UKOGL

A DrillOrDrop investigation found that most of the exploration licences issued in England nearly a decade ago in the bid to go “all out for shale” no longer exist.

We also tracked onshore oil and gas production every month. The data for all of 2024 has not yet been released. But our analysis shows that onshore oil is about 2% of the UK total and onshore gas is usually less than 1%. Most UK onshore oil comes from one site, Wytch Farm, in Dorset. Most onshore gas is from Saltfleetby in Lincolnshire.

In company news, Star Energy announced it was giving up its shale gas licences. The company said this would save the cost of licence fees and allow “greater focus” on producing assets. Star Energy also decommissioned its shale gas site at Misson in North Nottinghamshire in February 2024. The site had been mothballed for more than four years. Campaigners celebrated the end of the site.

Third Energy’s gas licences in the Ryedale area of North Yorkshire lapsed. The former would-be fracking company was acquired by CeraPhi, which began a geothermal pilot project at the KM8 well at Kirby Misperton.

Reabold Resources increased its stake in Rathlin Energy, operator of the West Newton licence, PEDL183, in East Yorkshire. Reabold now holds nearly 80% of Rathlin and 69.9% of PEDL183. Reabold also fought off a second shareholder challenge to the board. A funding shortfall had cast doubt on Rathlin’s future.

West Newton investors announced scaled-back plans for the field in February 2024. They said a single new directional well would be drilled at West Newton-A by the end of the year. The well was not drilled. No other work was carried out at the site or the neighbouring West Newton-B during the year. The industry regulator allowed Rathlin more time to explore the field.

Union Jack Oil, the largest investor in the Wressle oil field in North Lincolnshire, bought three mineral royalties in the Permian Basin in Texas  and began drilling. The company also farmed-in to drilling plans in Oklahoma.

Perenco, the Wytch Farm operator, confirmed potential decommissioning of the field by 2037.

Egdon Resources got a five-year extension from the industry regulator for its Waddock Cross licence, PL090, in Dorset. There has been no oil production from the three wells at Waddock Cross for 10 years. Stalled planning applications for more drilling and an extension to the life of the site saw no progress this year.

Angus Energy restarted oil production at Brockham in Surrey. The company also applied for planning permission to import produced water to Brockham from other sites. The company’s chief executive, Richard Herbert, told DrillOrDrop the onshore oil industry must generate cash for well decommissioning.

Cuadrilla cut the value of its oil and gas assets and said prospects for UK shale gas worsened in 2024. A fall in production from Horse Hill hit UKOG’s revenue. Star Energy’s revenue was hit by oil and gas price falls and the company took out a €25m loan to repay borrowing and fund geothermal projects. Europa Oil & Gas plc saw a cut to its revenue following a near halving of oil production at the company’s onshore sites, including Wressle, where it has a 30% stake.

UKOG announced heads of terms on a lease of land in south Dorset, earmarked for a second hydrogen storage site. It also raised £0.5m in a share placing to fund a bid for a salt cavern storage site in East Yorkshire.

Climate change

The Climate Change Committee (CCC), which advises UK governments on meeting their emissions targets, said there must be rapid cuts to the use of oil and gas. It also recommended the UK should cut its carbon emissions by 81% by 2035 compared with 1990 levels. In November, prime minister, Keir Starmer, accepted the CCC’s advice.

Emma Pinchbeck, formerly the chief executive of the trade organisation, Energy UK, was appointed head of the CCC. She replaced Chris Stark, who became head of the government’s new mission control centre for clean energy.

Emma Pinchbeck. Photo: Energy UK

The industry regulator, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), announced plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from flaring and venting at oil and gas production sites.

NSTA fined Perenco a record £225,000 – the highest ever penalty issued by the regulator for breaching venting limits.

In December 2024, the House of Lords environment and climate change committee called for more transparency on progress to end routine methane venting and flaring on UK oil and gas sites.

The Clean Air Task Force, which contributed to the committee’s investigation, reported that oil fields run by Star Energy in or near the South Downs National Park were still emitting methane.

East Sussex County Council again voted against fossil fuel divestment and BP abandoned targets to cut oil production.

Climate activists received record sentences for direct action. Five were sentenced to lengthy jail terms in July 2024 after being found guilty of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance for coordinating protests on the M25 in November 2022.

Politics

Labour won a landslide victory in the general election on 4 July 2024. Ed Miliband became the new energy secretary. The party committed in its manifesto to ban fracking and block new oil and gas licences.

In the budget, the chancellor confirmed an increase in the windfall tax on oil and gas profits. Friends of the Earth criticised the budget for falling “staggeringly short of what’s needed to address a climate and nature emergency”.

The government introduced a bill in July 2024 to create Great British Energy, a publicly-owned energy company that would produce, distribute, store and supply clean energy. The bill is currently going through its committee stage in the House of Lords.

Northern Ireland’s leaders agreed to ban all onshore petroleum exploration and production. Legislation is expected in late 2025.

Twice as many people now oppose fracking as support it, according to a long-running government survey in July 2024. The Wave tracker survey now asks about fracking once a year instead of the previous quarterly question.

Farewell

Tributes were paid to the campaigning Lancashire councillor, Julie Brickles, who died in July, and Moira O’Mahoney, a founder member of Frack Free Formby, who died in October.

Look out in the coming few days for our articles on who drilled where in 2024 and what to watch in 2025

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