Adura, a new name to most of us, turns out to be a joint venture between Shell and the Norwegian state energy giant Equinor. It stands ready to develop the Jackdaw gas field east of Aberdeen and the Rosebank field west of Shetland – if, that is, Andy Burnham and his Energy Secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, find the political courage to give the two projects the green light.
Jackdaw really is a no-brainer. Its peak output, piped through existing infrastructure into the UK gas system, could heat 1.4 million homes. Without it, assuming renewables can’t replace gas for many years ahead, we’ll buy more Norwegian gas from adjacent fields – or import LNG from the Gulf that will emit significantly more carbon over its lifetime, even including the end-use combustion which a Scottish court ruled last year had been omitted from a previous bid to open the two fields.
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Steven Edginton
Will the BBC apologise for its role in the Jason Arday story?
