The Government is expected to grant environmental consent on Wednesday to the Jackdaw gas field, 150 miles east of Aberdeen, according to reports citing Whitehall officials and the project's developer, in the first ministerial decision on a North Sea field since the Scottish courts quashed its original approval.
Politico reported on Tuesday afternoon that government officials expected the approval to be announced on Wednesday morning. The Scotsman reported separately that a source at Adura Operations, the Shell and Equinor joint venture developing the field, also expected a decision that day. Ministers have not confirmed the decision and no consent has been published.
The decision is the first test of Andy Burnham's promised "pragmatic approach" to oil and gas since he became Prime Minister in July, and of how far Labour's 2024 manifesto pledge of no new oil and gas licences constrains ministers on fields that already hold them. A decision on the larger Rosebank oil field, 80 miles north-west of Shetland, is expected to follow.
The Guardian reported that the Energy Secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh, and the Chancellor, John Healey, will make the announcement in Aberdeen on Wednesday morning. The venue and Mr Healey's involvement have not been independently confirmed.
Jackdaw was licensed in 1970 and received full consent in June 2022 under the then Business and Energy Secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng. The Court of Session quashed that consent, along with Rosebank's, in a judgment published as [2025] CSOH 10, after petitions by Greenpeace and the campaign group Uplift. The court found that the downstream emissions from burning the extracted gas had not been assessed, following the Supreme Court's ruling in June 2024 that such emissions must be taken into account.
The consent was struck down on assessment grounds rather than on the merits of the field itself. The developer has since been through a re-run environmental assessment overseen by the Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning, with further information published for consultation in November 2025 and consultations closing in August.
Mr Burnham told MPs on 14 October that the delay stemmed from that process. "I've had to wait for the government process, which was struck down by the courts under the Conservative government, to be fixed because they messed it up and we inherited that situation," he said, according to City AM. He added that he would take a "pragmatic approach" and set out decisions shortly.
Shell has said the field at peak would supply 6.5 per cent of UK Continental Shelf gas production for less than 1 per cent of the shelf's production emissions, a figure that excludes the downstream emissions at issue in the court case. In its emissions assessment submitted to the regulator last November, the company said: "Jackdaw is critical to sustaining UK strategic energy infrastructure."
Opponents measure the field against national demand rather than domestic production. Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift, told the Guardian: "Jackdaw will provide around just 2% of our gas demand for roughly 10 years. It has been oversold and won't stop the overall decline in North Sea jobs, as it will be largely unmanned and operated remotely."
She added: "Labour's climate credibility is on the line. No new oil and gasfields are compatible with safe climate limits."
Greenpeace UK, in its written objection to the regulator in December, said "the Environmental Statement does not justify Jackdaw, and is not compliant with regulatory requirements."
Whether any conditions, such as emissions limits or requirements for electrification, will be attached to the consent has not been reported. The Scottish Daily Express reported that Ms Fahnbulleh has said the Rosebank decision will take "a bit longer", and the Guardian reported officials describing Rosebank as likely to be the more sensitive of the two.
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