Plans For Controversial Cambo Oil Field Pushed Further With Ithaca Takeover

By Robyn McAvoy

Friday 8th April

Ithaca Energy takes over the controlling 70% stake in Cambo Oil Field after buying Siccar Point Energy in a $1.5 billion deal.

While the field will still have to be approved for development, Ithaca Energy boss has said it is a “huge opportunity” for the future of energy in the UK.

Ithaca Energy also own a 20% stake in Rosebank Oil Field, located in Shetland close to Cambo Oil Field. Ithaca Energy boss said both Cambo and Rosebank Oil Fields are “Two of the largest undeveloped and most strategically important discoveries in the UK North Sea”, in a statement to the Guardian.

“The Cambo field on its own is anticipated to deliver up to 170m barrels of oil equivalent during its 25-year operational life, materially helping to reduce the need for the import of more carbon intensive alternatives and increasing the UK’s energy independence through the energy transition”.

(Interactive map from Knightlab by Robyn McAvoy)

Though experts have said this will not be a quick process and will take decades to make any impact and so will not have an effect on current soaring household bills and energy prices, but it will accelerate climate change and have a damaging effect on the environment.

Climate campaigners also remain vehemently against the site and say the sale to Ithaca does not change the environmental impact of the site.

Caroline Rance the Climate and Energy Campaigner for Friends of the Earth said: “It doesn’t matter which profiteering fossil fuel company has their name on the Cambo licence, it doesn’t change the facts about this doomed oil field. Exploiting Cambo will do nothing for soaring energy bills but it will further risk our collective safety by worsening climate change.”

“The suggestion that increasing UK oil and gas production will protect consumers is simply false. Opening new oil fields like Cambo and Rosebank would further lock us into a broken fossil fuel energy system that is already unaffordable for millions of households in the UK and is driving the climate emergency.”

According to the Climate Change Committee (CCC) cutting down fossil fuel consumption is the most effective way to reduce these energy prices in the UK’s future and to achieve the goal of Net Zero by 2050.