Incoming US president Donald Trump has waded into the North Sea discussion, calling on the UK government to turn its back on offshore wind.
In a post on his own social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday (3 December), Trump wrote, “The UK is making a very big mistake. Open up the North Sea. Get rid of Windmills!” His stance against renewable energy is unsurprising – his election campaign ran with the slogan “drill, baby, drill” – but it indicates that his approach once in power, could be a challenge for the UK’s energy transition,
In the lead up to the previous election that saw him come to power in 2016, the British Supreme Court ruled against Trump’s objection to an 11-turbine offshore wind power plant off the coast of Aberdeen, a few miles from his Turnberry golf course. In 2019, a court ruled that the company would pay the legal costs incurred by the Scottish government in the case.
The post Trump made on Friday included a link to a report published in November about the plans of the Apache unit of American oil and gas producer APA Corp to exit the North Sea by year-end 2029. The company expects North Sea production to fall by 20% year-on-year in 2025.
In the UK, the most recent election represented a turn towards renewable energy and in October the government increased the windfall tax on oil and gas companies in the UK, bringing the rate of tax on upstream oil and gas to 78%.
This alone is not responsible for the decline of the oil and gas industry in the North Sea. Production has been in steady decline since the basin’s peak in the early 2000s: Reuters reports that in 2000 the basin was producing 4.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed), which had dropped to 1 million boed by 2024. By 2029, it is set to decline to 660,000 boed.
“Opening up” the North Sea, then, will not happen if, per Trump’s suggestion, the UK gets rid of its “windmills”.
The UK government has set a goal of 43–50GW of offshore wind generation capacity in its Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. According to analysis from Cornwall Insight, the next contracts for difference (CfD) auctions in 2025 and 2026 (AR7 and AR8) must at least double the total achieved in 2024’s AR6, itself breaking records for awarded capacity.
Data from the energy consultancy suggests that to achieve the government’s 2030 targets, set out in the Clean Power 2030 Action Plan (CP30), AR7 and AR8 together must deliver up to 20GW of offshore wind, 7-8GW of onshore wind and 23-24GW of solar PV. By comparison, AR6, which was allotted the highest-ever budget for a funding round, secured 5GW offshore wind, 900MW onshore wind and 3.3GW solar PV.
While this expansion in the sector represents significant investment, the profitability of offshore wind has been affected by increased costs, supply chain issues and rising interest rates.
As a result, major oil and gas companies, no doubt feeling some strain as global focus shifts to renewable energy sources, have been pulling back on their offshore wind initiatives; Trump’s posturing might suggest this was a wise decision.
