Miatta Fahnbulleh is expected to decide within weeks whether to approve drilling at the Rosebank oil and gas field and Jackdaw in the North Sea. Jackdaw could begin production this winter if the green light comes through, leaving Shell, Equinor and Adura waiting on one ruling that could unlock two projects near Aberdeen.
£35bn case for Jackdaw and Rosebank
£35bn in extra value added between 2026 and 2035 is the headline figure attached to the two projects, according to a Public First report commissioned by Adura. The same report put potential extra tax revenues at £12.1bn over the next decade, a scale that makes the approval call more than a planning dispute.
August consultations on drilling at either site have already closed, so the decision now sits with Miatta Fahnbulleh rather than in another round of submissions. The Rosebank oil field and Jackdaw gas field had both been approved by the former Conservative government, which means the current ruling will determine whether those permissions survive the latest process.
Anders Opedal pushes back
Anders Opedal said, “The Keir Starmer government said the UK was open for business. We’ve applied for consent twice” and added that “Adura has done everything it has been asked to do. The UK has one of the most rigorous approval processes in the world.” His warning that refusals would be a “major setback” turns the decision into a test of how the UK weighs investment appeal against its drilling stance.
“I will take a pragmatic approach on oil and gas. We will set out our decisions shortly,” Andy Burnham said during Prime Minister’s Questions, after Kemi Badenoch urged him to “stop faffing about” and allow energy bosses to proceed. That clash matters because Labour campaigned in 2024 on a manifesto saying it would not issue new licences for oil and gas drilling, yet one of its ministers is now weighing approval for Jackdaw and Rosebank.
Labour's licence test
For Shell and Equinor, the decision is binary: approval opens the way to production and further spending, while rejection forces the projects back into limbo after government delay and lengthy bureaucratic wrangling. Jackdaw has the clearest near-term timetable, with production possible this winter if Miatta Fahnbulleh approves it.
The unresolved question is whether she backs the projects, rejects them, or sends them back into delay. For investors, the answer will set the tone for how much weight the UK gives to North Sea development when the political cost of new drilling collides with the economic case laid out by Adura.
