Member Info for Modestus1

Here you are, Krak.

Ed Miliband's energy policy is madness on stilts. There is no higher priority than stopping him before he ruins Britain

Ed Miliband, the Net Zero zealot in charge of UK energy policy, comes from that breed of politician which thinks if you repeat even an obvious lie often enough, people will eventually believe you.

He was at it again this week, claiming that his latest mega contracts for offshore wind would usher in a new era of cheap, reliable energy.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet, as Reform UK and the Tories were knocking lumps out of each other, Miliband continued unimpeded in his one-man mission to take the country to hell in a handcart by locking us into ever higher electricity prices for as far as the eye can see.

Let us start with the fact that, under Labour and equally complicit Tory governments, a 20-year rush to renewables – led largely by wind power and costing tens of billions – has lumbered Britain with the most expensive industrial energy costs on the planet and among the world's very highest prices for domestic consumers. So much for cheap renewables.

Yet Miliband has the temerity to claim his new state-sanctioned expansion of offshore wind power means cheaper electricity bills for all – largely because, he says, electricity created by wind turbines is now 40 per cent cheaper than gas-generated electricity. None of this is true.

Last year, the average wholesale price of electricity was £80 per megawatt hour. Yet, to lure big energy companies to invest in offshore wind, Miliband has had to guarantee a minimum 'strike price' of £91/MWh – index-linked to inflation for the next 20 years.

Moreover, that £91 is based on 2024 prices. So it's already £94/MWh at the start of 2026. Corporate welfare never tasted so sweet. Germany's RWE energy giant lapped it up, snaffling 83 per cent of the capacity on offer. So much for green energy revitalising British industry.

Labour MPs, probably mindful that their party is struggling to hit even 20 per cent in the latest polls and the need to big up any good news they can concoct, flooded social media to hail Comrade Ed's great work. In doing so, they promulgated a lie – and demonstrated they have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to energy policy.

It's all because of his madcap ideological fixation with decarbonising the electricity grid by 2030, whatever the cost – a socialist strategy which neatly fuses extreme environmentalism requiring a huge expansion of state power with total government control of energy policy. Hence its appeal to Miliband.

If ever there were a Labour policy against which the Right needed to unite, instead of being convulsed by their own narrow ideological obsessions, it is Miliband's determination to inflict rack and ruin on the nation with his barmy energy policy. Sensible folk on the Left should be opposed too, given what it's doing to jobs and living standards.

UK politicians accused of treating carbon reduction ‘like a religion’

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/01/13/britain-less-investable-than-venezuela-says-north-sea-boss/

Britain has become as unattractive for investment as Venezuela because of Labour’s net zero crackdown on the oil industry, a North Sea boss has warned.

Jim Johnson, the chief executive of engineering group Hunting, criticised ministers for adopting a religious zeal around cutting greenhouse gas emissions, which he said had left Britain “like the Venezuela of the North Sea”.

“The problem in the UK is that its politicians treat carbon reduction like a religion,” he said, accusing Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, in particular of having a “ridiculous approach to the energy transition”................

Mr Johnson warned that carbon levies and the high energy prices from Labour are set to destroy what’s left of Britain’s heavy industries.

London-listed Hunting is poised to reduce its UK workforce to the bone because of the decline of the North Sea...............

Mr Johnson made clear that the previous Conservative government – which imposed an oil windfall tax in 2022 – was “not blameless”.

But he said his main criticism was aimed at Labour, which raised total taxes to 78pc, cut some tax breaks and put a ban on drilling for new oil and gas.

It means, he said, that Norway has drilled dozens of new wells and was opening new fields in its section of the North Sea – while the UK was closing down its resources.

“The UK’s North Sea is going to decline while Norway’s forges ahead.”

The big risk for the UK, he added, was that the pipelines serving its North Sea oil fields would see flow rates decline as the oil fields they serve shut down.

If pipelines such as the Forties system, which serves 80 offshore oil fields, were to shut down, many offshore platforms would also be doomed, he warned.

(continued)

“There was a day recently when Ed Miliband was trumpeting about how he’d agreed to buy £10bn worth of Norwegian gas – which was the same day that Norway announced its biggest ever licensing round. The Norwegians know they’ve got a daft neighbour who will buy everything it produces no matter the cost.”

UK waters still contain at least 14 billion barrels of extractable oil and gas and possible more than 20 billion, data from the North Sea Transition Authority suggest. About 48 billion barrels have been extracted since 1970.

A spokesman for the Energy Department ruled out new exploration in the UK sector of the North Sea, saying that new oil and gas “would not take a penny off bills, cannot make us energy secure and will only accelerate the worsening climate crisis”.

UK left looking like a ‘daft neighbour’ as new technology allows fresh extraction

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/01/12/norway-reopen-dead-north-sea-oil-fields-britain-retreats/

Norway is preparing to extract billions of pounds worth of fossil fuels from the North Sea as it reopens “dead” oil and gas fields close to British waters.

A report by a Norwegian government agency said improvements in technology meant closed fields that were once considered too expensive to extract from could now be reopened.

It marks a stark contrast with Britain’s attitude. Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, banned new oil and gas drilling in 2024.

Experts said Norway’s success in oil and gas exploration made Britain look like a “daft neighbour” and added that it will increase the UK’s reliance on overseas imports.

Norway said the scheme will help it maintain high levels of oil and gas production for a decade or more, with the country’s output soaring to a 16-year high last year.

The shuttered fields set for reactivation include parts of the Ekofisk reserve in the southern part of Norway’s North Sea sector, relatively near to UK waters. Industry experts have long argued that many shuttered UK fields could yield similar riches.

The report by the Norwegian Offshore Directorate, a government agency, said: “One important reason why production remains at such high levels is that the fields are producing for longer than originally planned because new and improved technology has allowed us to continuously improve our understanding of the subsurface.

“New development projects, more production wells and exploration in the surrounding area have helped extend the lifetimes of most fields ... A number of fields are producing between 10 and 30 years longer than originally planned.

“Certain fields that are no longer producing are now being considered for reopening.”

About 180 of the UK’s 280 fields are set to close by 2030 and the offshore sector is losing 1,000 jobs a month. In the last 12 months, Britain spent £20.6bn buying oil and gas from Norway.

It means the UK’s reliance on imports is growing fast. Government modelling suggests that the UK will still need nearly 40 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year in 2035, plus 40 million tonnes of oil products.

However, the UK’s own gas production will be down from 30bcm to 7bcm on current trends while oil is set to fall from 35 million tonnes to just 13 million.

It means the UK will be 80pc dependent on imports – mainly from Norway and the US.

Ashley Kelty, of investment bank Panmure Liberum, said: “It makes no sense that we have shut down our domestic production only to rely ever more on imports.

(continued)

volatility under a de-carbonised energy system.”

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero was contacted for comment.

Labour’s drive to reach net zero could require spending of more than £4.5 trillion over the next 25 years, according to official estimates.

Figures published last month by the National Energy System Operator (Neso), the body responsible for running Britain’s power networks, suggest that the scale of investment needed to decarbonise the economy by 2050 is significantly higher than previously assumed.

Neso estimates that about £585 billion will be needed for households to replace gas boilers with low-carbon heating such as heat pumps. A further £1 trillion would be required to build new wind farms, pylons and electricity networks, while the switch to electric vehicles and charging infrastructure could add up to £2.6 trillion.

The figures suggest an annual investment of about £182 billion would be required to meet the government’s climate targets.

Earlier estimates from the Office for Budget Responsibility suggested that the transition to net zero would cost more than £800 billion over the next two decades, with the state contributing about £30 billion a year.

Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy and net zero secretary, said families and businesses would face contributing to “hundreds of billions of pounds” in costs to replace boilers, vehicles and infrastructure while countries such as China continued to build coal-fired power stations.

She told The Times: “This official data shows that net zero is going to cost far more than anyone has admitted. That means taxpayers, families and businesses footing a bill of hundreds of billions of pounds upgrading their boilers, cars and infrastructure. This means ongoing pressure on the cost of living, the competitiveness of our businesses and less money to spend on other state priorities like defence or the NHS.

“Britain cannot afford to spend the next 25 years forcing people to adopt expensive technologies before they are ready to, just to meet a net zero target. We should just focus on making electricity cheap and let people buy products when they want to.”

Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, said the estimates showed the policy should be abandoned, claiming it would “bankrupt the country”.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, is expected to outline proposals next month for up to £13 billion of spending on grants for insulation, heat pumps, solar panels and home batteries as part of Labour’s warm homes programme.

However, government data published earlier this month showed that electricity generation from fossil fuels rose last year.

A Neso spokesman said the proposed spending totals would ensure that the proportion of the British economy designated to energy costs would decline by half, from 10 per cent today to between 5 and 6 per cent by 2050.

He said: “This is despite a projected rise in energy demand, driven by population growth, increasing GDP and growing consumption from data centres. Our analysis shows we would be less exposed to energy price volatilit

(continued)

claiming it would “bankrupt the country”.

Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, is expected to outline proposals next month for up to £13 billion of spending on grants for insulation, heat pumps, solar panels and home batteries as part of Labour’s warm homes programme.

However, government data published earlier this month showed that electricity generation from fossil fuels rose last year.

A Neso spokesman said the proposed spending totals would ensure that the proportion of the British economy designated to energy costs would decline by half, from 10 per cent today to between 5 and 6 per cent by 2050.

He said: “This is despite a projected rise in energy demand, driven by population growth, increasing GDP and growing consumption from data centres. Our analysis shows we would be less exposed to energy price volatility under a de-carbonised energy system.”

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero was contacted for comment.

The shadow energy and net zero secretary said families and businesses would have to contribute to bills of ‘hundreds of billions of pounds’

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/cost-uk-net-zero-45-trillion-2qsnb9n7p

Labour’s drive to reach net zero could require spending of more than £4.5 trillion over the next 25 years, according to official estimates.

Figures published last month by the National Energy System Operator (Neso), the body responsible for running Britain’s power networks, suggest that the scale of investment needed to decarbonise the economy by 2050 is significantly higher than previously assumed.

However, government data published earlier this month showed that electricity generation from fossil fuels rose last year.

A Neso spokesman said the proposed spending totals would ensure that the proportion of the British economy designated to energy costs would decline by half, from 10 per cent today to between 5 and 6 per cent by 2050.

He said: “This is despite a projected rise in energy demand, driven by population growth, increasing GDP and growing consumption from data centres. Our analysis shows we would be less exposed to energy price volatility under a de-carbonised energy system.”

Neso estimates that about £585 billion will be needed for households to replace gas boilers with low-carbon heating such as heat pumps. A further £1 trillion would be required to build new wind farms, pylons and electricity networks, while the switch to electric vehicles and charging infrastructure could add up to £2.6 trillion.

The figures suggest an annual investment of about £182 billion would be required to meet the government’s climate targets.

Earlier estimates from the Office for Budget Responsibility suggested that the transition to net zero would cost more than £800 billion over the next two decades, with the state contributing about £30 billion a year.

Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy and net zero secretary, said families and businesses would face contributing to “hundreds of billions of pounds” in costs to replace boilers, vehicles and infrastructure while countries such as China continued to build coal-fired power stations.

She told The Times: “This official data shows that net zero is going to cost far more than anyone has admitted. That means taxpayers, families and businesses footing a bill of hundreds of billions of pounds upgrading their boilers, cars and infrastructure. This means ongoing pressure on the cost of living, the competitiveness of our businesses and less money to spend on other state priorities like defence or the NHS.

“Britain cannot afford to spend the next 25 years forcing people to adopt expensive technologies before they are ready to, just to meet a net zero target. We should just focus on making electricity cheap and let people buy products when they want to.”

Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, said the estimates showed the policy should be abandoned, cla

(continued)

Above all there is the way the subsidised drive towards wind power has enriched the owners of vast estates in the Scottish Highlands. Few more so than the former Conservative Party donor Christopher Moran, owner of the Cabrach and Glenfiddich estates covering 50,000 acres of Morayshire. Over the three years 2022-24 Moran received £28 million from the energy company to which he has let the land where the eyesore wind turbines have been installed. We know these figures only because Moran has taken EDF to court, claiming it has short-changed him.

Yet the biggest of all the wind farm beneficiaries is the Crown Estate. Its growing revenues, as a result of its ownership of the UK’s sea bed up to a distance of 12 nautical miles from the shore, are described in The House magazine (the periodical delivered free to all members of parliament) as “the greatest royal bonanza since the Civil List was established in 1760”.

The arrangement is that the government takes 88 per cent of the billions of pounds accruing from the exorbitant leases for offshore wind farms. But the 12 per cent retained by the King is still an astonishing, er, windfall. His retained income from the estate rose last year to £132m, from £86m the previous year.

Yes, all part of Ed Miliband’s war on the rich and powerful.

(continued)

Labour’s source for this endlessly repeated claim was a report in 2023 by the energy think tank Ember. But in October the author of that report, Pawel Czyzak, asked by the BBC if he stood by his estimates, said it was “a much different situation than it was in 2023 … I think the question now will be whether the high cost of offshore wind doesn’t disrupt some of these wholesale energy savings.”

Well, indeed. In the summer Miliband’s department authorised a “maximum strike price” for future offshore wind of £113 per megawatt hour. The shadow energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, noted on X: “As a comparison, the average cost of energy last year: £72/MWh. The Climate Change Committee forecast for offshore wind is £38/MWh (!!)”.

That statutory oversight committee, the official useful idiot of the renewable energy industry, was set up by Miliband as part of his Climate Change Act 2008 when he was energy secretary in the previous Labour government. Its mandate to reduce our use of fossil fuel by 80 per cent by 2050 was ratcheted up to 100 per cent by Theresa May as her farewell gift to the nation in 2019, despite her chancellor, Philip Hammond, warning (conservatively) that this would cost £1 trillion.

How do the policies designed to meet this commitment — Milibandism in action — cohere with its creator’s passion for advancing the needs of the masses at the expense of “the rich and powerful”? Not at all, according to the leader of the trade union Unite. Sharon Graham, furious about the closure of Britain’s oil refineries, has called Miliband’s policies “a disaster” and said last week his “net zero plans are hurting workers”. The head of the GMB union, Gary Smith, told a meeting I attended last year that “tens of thousands of jobs directly supported by [North Sea] oil and gas” were being put at risk. He doesn’t think highly of replacing these well-paid unionised jobs with those installing Chinese-made solar panels.

Now, it’s nice for those of us who own our own roofs, especially in the sunny southeast, to get government subsidies for such installations. But as the Resolution Foundation (which allegedly informs much of Labour’s thinking) pointed out in its report “Sunny Day Savings”, 45 per cent of rooftop solar installations are in the third of areas with the highest incomes.

The way net zero policies favour those with the deepest pockets is still clearer when it comes to the replacement of gas boilers with air source heat pumps. There may indeed be a long-term reduction in bills for those who fit them, but, given the cost of installation, poorer families will not be at the front of the queue for the grant of up to £7,500. According to the Energy Utilities Alliance: “The scheme is designed in a way that only the well-off can afford. The extra layer of unfairness is that this is a taxpayer-funded scheme and all taxpayers are contributing towards this.”

Contrary to his claims, the energy secretary is a reverse Robin Hood as net-zero policies favour those with the deepest pockets

https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/ed-milibands-eco-war-only-benefiting-the-rich-xx8rfszh8

On Tuesday Ed Miliband posted a clip of his response that day in the House of Commons when a Conservative MP, Caroline Johnson, asked how much it would cost taxpayers to subsidise the claimed “£150 reduction” in energy bills set out in the budget.

Quivering with virtue, and jabbing his finger repeatedly at the slightly startled-looking questioner, Miliband declaimed: “I will tell the honourable lady. We are proud of the fact that in the budget we raised taxes on the wealthy so that we could cut bills for millions of families across the country. I am so grateful to her for her question, because it illustrates the difference between our parties … For too long this country has been run for the wealthy and powerful by the Conservative Party. We are changing that.”

Not a bad audition (the passion, the socialism!) for any plans Miliband may have to persuade Labour Party members he is the man to succeed that perpetually perplexed plonker Keir Starmer as their leader, should the position become vacant. It was also self-serving nonsense. While it is true that Labour has targeted class enemies with some of its budgetary measures (private schools, farmers, non-doms), the amounts those tax changes will raise are piffling.

As one old Treasury hand put it to me: “They are performative politics, not serious revenue-raising.” The overwhelming bulk of the fiscal grab in Rachel Reeves’s two budgets comes from the increases in national insurance tax and the extension of the freeze in tax thresholds. When delivering her 2024 budget, Reeves said: “I have come to the conclusion that extending the threshold freeze would hurt working people.” A year later she decided to hurt “working people” after all. As the former director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, Paul Johnson, noted, the extended non-indexation of allowances would bring millions more people into paying income tax, and into the higher (40 per cent) rate.

That is the real reason Labour is able to subsidise a £150 reduction in energy bills — or at least make them that much lower than they otherwise would be. Because they had been rising, threatening severe embarrassment for Miliband, who had boasted that his madcap programme to rid the grid of all fossil fuel input by 2030 would lead to a £300 reduction in the average household’s annual energy bill.

(continued)

— you will be able to consider them more seriously the larger you are.”

(continued)

p’s Venezuela move opened the prospect of a new wave of supply.

“I think it’s an appropriate reaction by US shale to be miffed,” said Dan Pickering, founder of Pickering Energy Partners. “Not just because Venezuelan production might go up but because the US government, in theory, is going to subsidise that.”

He added: “These guys are already worried about price. They live in a country where the president wants the price of their output to go down.”

Shares in the leading independent US oil groups tumbled this week as traders bet the Venezuelan oil surge would hit them hard. Diamondback Energy, APA Corp and Devon Energy each lost as much as 9 per cent.

“Somebody’s looking at these stocks today going, why would I own this if in a few years, they’re going to be competing against Venezuela for oil, for our refineries in the United States?” said Edwards.

The price of crude has halved since mid-2022 when WTI surged past $120 a barrel following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Gasoline prices have fallen to about $2.80 a gallon. As Trump looks ahead to midterm elections this year, he would prefer crude prices closer to $50 a barrel and gasoline below $2 a gallon.

US energy secretary Chris Wright said on Thursday that Big Oil’s arrival in Venezuela could push up its output as much as 50 per cent to 1.2mn barrels a day within 12 months.

“I think you’ll see more downward pressure on the price of gasoline,” he told Fox News.

Shale executives said Wright, a former oilfield services boss whose appointment by Trump was cheered in Texas, had abandoned his roots.

“He gets it [but] he is just toeing the party line,” said one Midland shale executive, who noted industry relations with Wright had grown strained.

But the executive placed more of the blame on Trump, saying there was “absolute frustration” in the industry at the president. “He’s definitely not pro oil as far as independent oil companies’ survival and vibrancy. The message will have to come in US production declining,” the person said.

Trump’s comments this week that US taxpayers could help reimburse big oil groups that invest in Venezuela sparked more ire in the shale patch.

“We should not subsidise the big companies in trying to retool Venezuela’s infrastructure and develop their reserves for them,” said another prominent shale executive. Trump, he said, did not care if smaller oil groups “drill their way into oblivion” and did not “give a damn if they went bankrupt”.

Analysts said the fallout made clear that as the prospects for future production moved beyond US shores, America’s well-resourced oil giants were now solidly in the ascendancy.

“All of this points to the advantage of being larger,” said Maynard Holt, chief executive of Houston-based energy consultancy Veriten.

“Because many of the opportunities that are coming — whether it’s Venezuela or Algeria or some other complicated place

president’s effort to drive down crude prices will hit sector struggling to sustain output growth

https://www.ft.com/content/f498bdcb-c5df-4b10-a390-7b61adb140e4

us shale bosses have warned president donald trump that his mission to seize venezuela’s oil sector and drive down crude prices will put american output on the chopping block.

trump is set to meet us big oil chiefs on friday, but executives at large independent drillers — who are not on the attendee list — are seething over the president’s plan to flood america with venezuelan crude.

“we’re talking about this administration screwing us over again,” said a top executive at one of the country’s leading shale groups, describing the plans as “against american producers”.

“if the us government starts providing guarantees to oil companies to produce or grow oil production in venezuela i’m going to be . . . ****ed.”

trump’s drive to open up venezuela’s oil riches, potentially subsidising investors, has further strained relations with oil executives in texas, who have been angered by his dogged pursuit of ever-lower crude prices. the ire in the shale industry — where many executives bankrolled the president’s return to office — echoes a frustration in the maga movement that trump is neglecting his “america first” mantra.

but problems in texas’s oil industry are mounting, as cheaper oil forces producers to idle rigs needed to keep production ticking higher. the us is the biggest producer in the world, but its pivotal shale production requires continuous drilling to keep growing. the number of operating us oil rigs last week was just 412, down by 15 per cent in a year.

the energy information administration forecasts that the us’s record-high output will fall by about 100,000 barrels a day in 2026 as drillers retreat — the first annual drop since the covid-19 pandemic.trump flew to texas multiple times in 2024 to tap deep-pocketed oil barons for cash, making executives angry at what some describe privately as a “betrayal”. "to me, the signal from the administration is: we’d rather spend our american money on propping up a venezuelan oil business than supporting our current independent businesses,” said kirk edwards, chief executive of latigo petroleum, a private producer based in odessa, texas, who donated to the president’s re-election campaign. only the biggest energy groups, such as exxonmobil, chevron and conocophillips, have access to the tens of billions of dollars in capital, teams of lawyers and security protection needed for a foray into venezuelan oil.

for smaller us operators, a revitalised venezuelan industry — if trump can pull it off — means worsening the market glut. shale drillers need a barrel of west texas intermediate, the us benchmark, to trade above $60 to turn a profit. its price fell below $56 a barrel this week and the eia said it would average $51 a barrel this year — a forecast made before trum

US oil giant ExxonMobil tells Donald Trump Venezuela is ‘uninvestable’

Chief executive Darren Woods pushes back against president’s call to rush back into troubled country

https://www.ft.com/content/4c21c031-443e-4834-a7a6-3dd59672b54e

ExxonMobil has warned that Venezuela remains “uninvestable” without “significant changes” in a rebuke to Donald Trump’s call for oil companies to pour billions of dollars into revitalising its oil industry.

Darren Woods, chief executive of the biggest US oil major, struck a sceptical tone at a televised White House gathering of energy bosses on Friday — even as some other companies expressed optimism about the potential to tap the world’s biggest oil reserves.

“If we look at the legal and commercial constructs, frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” Woods told Trump in a meeting that included many of America’s most prominent energy executives and some of the president’s top lieutenants.

“Significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system, there has to be durable investment protections, and there has to be change to the hydrocarbon laws in the country.”

Woods said the company’s assets in Venezuela had been seized twice since Exxon first entered the country back in the 1940s.

His remarks underline how the biggest energy groups remain reluctant to rush into making big capital commitments in Venezuela even as Trump seeks to cajole them into pouring “at least $100bn” into the country to increase production and drive down US oil prices. Other oil executives gathered at the White House — including services groups and those that already have operations on the ground — were more receptive to the president’s overtures, suggesting some level of capital could flow into the country in the near term. Chevron said it could boost production by 50 per cent within 18 to 24 months by expanding its existing operations, which pumps about 240,000 barrels per day. Shell boss Wael Sawan said the European oil major had “a few billion dollars’ worth of opportunities to invest in” subject to the US providing waivers to its sanctions. “We are ready to go,” he said.

Spain’s Repsol said it could triple its current production to more than 150,000 b/d within two to three years. Eni, which has about 500 people working in Venezuela, said it had 4bn barrels of reserves in the country and was ready to boost investment.

Harold Hamm, founder of Continental Resources and a longtime Trump ally, declined to make any commitments to invest in Venezuela even as he described its vast reserves as a “real jewel”.

Asked directly by Trump if he planned to inject capital into the country, Hamm said Venezuela was a “very exciting thing” with “challenges” that he said the industry “knows how to handle”...............

Adam Rozencwaig is very clear about the fact Trump cannot have both : a WTI-bl at $50 and rising production.

Https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/UK-North-Sea-Oil-Enters-Survival-Mode-as-Investment-Dries-Up.html

You can say mothballed, Romaron....the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire, one of the last five major oil refineries in the country, will not restart standalone operations after it was sold to Phillips 66 on Monday.

The Texas-based oil and gas giant said the site’s limited size meant it was “not viable in current form”, instead claiming it would integrate some smaller parts of the site into its nearby Humber refinery.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/01/05/one-of-britains-last-oil-refineries-to-be-mothballed-despit/

Short, excellent articie in DT :

.......The US understands that influence over access to natural resources, both to supply your own industry and to deny them to rivals, is crucial to economic success...........

By contrast the British Government seemingly does everything in its power to worsen our energy position. We have punished the once-lucrative North Sea with punitive windfall taxes and by refusing any new exploration licenses. Norway is still developing fields that we have chosen to ignore. Our energy costs have soared out of control as a result of deliberate policy choices, leading to industrial prices twice those of France and four times those of the US, crippling our manufacturers. We have bet everything on wind power that increasingly looks too expensive and intermittent to sustain a modern developed nation. Worse still, wind depends on Chinese equipment. We have failed to build the more reliable nuclear alternative that would have been a far better source of zero carbon power.

The results of all those decisions are now becoming painfully clear as Britain loses economic ground. The energy we need is horribly expensive and undependable. Households are squeezed and crippling energy bills mean that it is becoming ever harder to run a business of any kind, let alone a manufacturing one.

It is impossible to imagine any recent British Prime Minister taking the kind of ruthless action President Trump has just authorised. Lawyerly Sir Keir Starmer would almost certainly prioritise the UK’s net zero treaty commitments, futile though they are given our tiny national carbon emissions.

The failure of the British political class on energy costs is a shocking act of national sabotage that is only emphasised by the readiness of superpowers to act ruthlessly in the opposite direction. If there is one lesson to be learnt from events in Venezuela over the weekend it is surely this: energy security is also national security. It is time the British Government starts to take it far more seriously.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/2026/01/04/energy-venezuela-trump-security-britains-folly/

Heavy oil is the one needed for the workhorse of the economy indeed, Romaron, which is diesel.

Did you see Kuenssberg today? Not a single question or remark about the Net Zero debacle, its effect on industry and employment, disappointing...

I think the fireworks will still rather be in gold and silver than in oil, scarcity hasn't extended to oil yet....