A description of the North Sea’s energy scene will often contain an unlikely cocktail of superlatives.

It’s one of the world’s most mature basins, home to an ageing production infrastructure, and beset by policy challenges and a punitive tax regime. Yet it’s also one of the world’s safest, most efficient and least carbon-intensive energy markets. Home to 154,000^[1] skilled workers (and tens of thousands of induced jobs), it is a hotbed of innovation, spanning everything from novel commercial models, to new drilling systems, to emissions reduction solutions, and the repurposing of redundant oil and gas infrastructure.

With so much happening across so many dimensions, argues Ed Jones, Petrofac’s Head of Business Development for Asset Solutions, UK companies have much to offer, both at home and across the global energy industry.

There’s never a dull moment on the UK Continental Shelf. 
 
It is an energy basin in transition – where ageing oilfields, cutting-edge offshore wind farms, and emerging low-carbon technologies increasingly co-exist to balance energy security, profitability, and net-zero ambitions.

But that transition is set to be a decades-long process. The UK will continue to use oil and gas between now and 2050 – up to the equivalent of 15 billion barrels, according to Offshore Energies UK. Recent developments, like the completion of the merger between Repsol’s North Sea business and NEO, demonstrate industry commitment to the region’s remaining hydrocarbon resources – but also a further ratcheting-up of the need to find yet more efficiencies and extract yet more value from the existing infrastructure.

Of course, it’s not just about operators pooling resources. What’s often overlooked and underappreciated is the level of innovation coming out of the UK, and spirit of collaboration that catalyses it. Each year, the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) produces a Technology Survey & Insights Report. The most recent listed 1,250 new technologies, spanning every stage of the asset lifecycle from development to decommissioning, which is just incredible. And, over recent years, the trend has been towards joint industry initiatives and partnerships. In the past three years, these collaborative approaches have increased from around a quarter to a third of all solutions^[2] – which, to me, speaks volumes about the level of partnership we enjoy and the benefits they bring.

So, the NSTA was not exaggerating when they said that the UK is well established as a testbed for pioneering technologies used to produce billions of barrels of hydrocarbons. The challenge – and the opportunity – is to continue to do so responsibly, while creating world-class renewables to diversify our future energy mix.

The basin can and will evolve – but first, it needs the right backing.

The resounding message surrounding Offshore Europe this week was this: if we get policy and licensing right, and set the right tone for investment, the UK has the potential to significantly increase homegrown production.

It’s no secret that this wouldn’t eradicate the UK’s need for more carbon intensive energy imports, but it would reduce it. Significantly. Protecting economic value, protecting skills, and – with the North Sea sector’s proven ability to innovate – supporting the transition towards a more balanced energy mix in support of 2050 targets. The question remains; can the UK really afford not to pursue all angles?

There’s a lot about this region that gives me confidence in the future.  

Yes, it’s one of the world’s most mature basins, but mature doesn’t mean game over. Mature means a highly skilled and experienced workforce, and decades of innovation. Reported across UK media this week are a number of well nuanced, pragmatic contributions about how the basin might approach its next chapter, while keeping firm grasp of net-zero aims.

From licensing approaches that support domestic production, consider all environmental impacts, including downstream emissions, and adhereto the lowest polluting standards. To getting more from existing assets through investment in subsea tiebacks. And, the electrification and repurposing of other infrastructure to support decarbonisation. These are what my teenage daughters might call, “no-brainers”.

The sector doesn’t just have the right ideas, it also has the experience, knowledge and passion to bring them to life.

In the home of late life asset management, managing ageing facilities and delivering operational improvements to maximise output is what we do and how our teams think here. Assets originally designed for a 20-year field life, are still producing safely well beyond that term. Because by keeping cessation of production front of mind, and thinking right-to-left, maintenance strategies are redeveloped to focus on safety, integrity and production critical requirements. Repairs and equipment upgrades are naturally accompanied by thinking on operational and production implications.

As well as coaxing more value from assets, the UK is seizing the opportunity to more closely integrate late-life asset management with decommissioning. That way, it becomes possible to squeeze every drop of economically viable production from an asset, while simultaneously planning for its managed decline, identifying those components that can be repurposed or re-used, and working out the details of the eventual plugging and abandonment and, ultimately, the removal of all infrastructure as part of the transition to net-zero.

The UK’s opportunity to export skills

Almost any basin in the world will be following the same trajectory as the North Sea, but will typically be several years behind us. That’s why in its next chapter the UK industry is also in such a strong position to export its skill and innovation. As our Asset Solutions business expands into more geographies, our UK heritage is at the core of our offering for the same reasons – the skills we’ve developed here, can be put to good use elsewhere. So too are they being deployed in support of the renewable energy projects and low-carbon engineering strategies deployed by the wider Petrofac team on developments across the globe.  
 
That doesn’t mean to say we’re leaving the North Sea behind. Far from it. Alongside the 154,000 or so people employed across the UK sector, we’re betting on the North Sea’s future.  

[1] OEUK 2025 Economic Report  

[2] North Sea Transition Authority, NSTA Technology Survey & Insights Report 2024