A landmark legal judgement on the climate impact  of onshore oil has forced the UK’s first ever formal assessment of carbon emissions from burning hydrocarbons.

The Supreme Court ruled in June 2024 that the greenhouse gas resulting from combustion of UK oil must be taken into account when assessing the environmental impact of production plans.

Proposals by Egdon Resources for 15 years of production at Biscathorpe in the Lincolnshire Wolds had been approved on appeal by a planning inspector in November 2023, without this assessment.

But that decision was overturned in July 2024 following the Supreme Cout judgement.

Local campaigners argued successfully at the High Court that the appeal should have looked at the greenhouse gases resulting from combustion, known as downstream or scope 3 emissions.

Egdon Resources has now produced an assessment of these emissions in an addendum to its original environmental statement. This has been submitted to the Planning Inspectorate in preparation for a new appeal hearing, expected later this year.

The Biscathorpe site has not yet discovered oil. The original application and the later appeals have been described as a “three-in-one” proposal because they included drilling a side-track well and testing, as well as production.

Egdon’s original environmental statement concluded that oil production at Biscathorpe would not have a significant impact on climate change.

The new assessment, see above or linked here, estimated the total carbon emissions from Biscathorpe, including the scope 3 emissions, at between 1.442 million tonnes and 3.385 million tonnes.

The company assumed Biscathorpe would extract between 2.77 million barrels and 6.5 million barrels of crude oil over the proposed 15 years of production. This equates to total production of between 365,557 tonnes and 857,805 tonnes.

The total carbon emissions figure also assumed a total of 31,500 heavy goods vehicle (HGV) movements during production expected from 2026-2040 and a total of 32,998 HGV from 2026 onwards, during the drilling, workover, site work and grid connection phases.

Egdon concluded that the total emissions from Biscathorpe, including those from burning the oil, production, processing and HGV movements would account for less than 0.15% of each of the relevant UK carbon budgets.

The company said:

“the effects of the proposed development on climate change would not be significant”.

This conclusion was supported by an independent review (see below) carried out for Egdon Resources by Surrey County Council.

The author, Jessica Salder, the council’s principal environmental assessment officer, said:

“The climate impact of the downstream emissions arising from the crude oil that would be extracted as a result of the development [at Biscathorpe] can be classed as non-significant.

“I hope you find the review set out in this letter helpful”.

(The independent review raises a number of questions which DrillOrDrop has put to Surrey County Council. We will report separately on this and any response from the council.)

Lincolnshire’s carbon ambitions

Neither the addendum, nor the independent review, assessed the impact of scope 3 emissions on local or regional carbon budgets.

In her independent review, Ms Salder said these would “not be an appropriate comparator for crude oil production projects”.

Comparison with local climate targets can, however, illustrate the scale of the scope 3 emissions from the use of oil extracted from an individual site.

Professor Kevin Anderson, a former petroleum engineer, who now holds professorships at three universities, had compared the climate impact of an equivalent Lincolnshire site with Lincolnshire County Council’s carbon management ambitions.

He said the proposed site at North Kelsey, also operated by Egdon Resources, would produce 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide over its life, from a similar estimated level of production to Biscathorpe of 6.5 million barrels of oil.

Professor Anderson calculated that the 3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide would be more than 600 times the total emission cut achieved by Lincolnshire County Council’s carbon management plan over six years.

The council expected that emissions from all its activities for the six years to 2022 would be down by 20%, or 4,800 tonnes of CO2e, compared with 2016.

Professor Anderson said:

“the emissions from this single development completely overwhelm all the efforts of the county council to gets its own carbon emissions in order.”

Comments

Lincolnshire County Council has invited people who commented on Egdon’s first appeal to respond to the new addendum and any other issues about the Biscathorpe proposals.

It is not clear whether the consultation is open to people who have not previously commented.

The Supreme Court judgement emphasised that public participation was needed in assessing environmental impacts. It would increase the democratic legitimacy of decisions and contribute to public awareness of the environmental issues, the court said.

The judgement said guaranteeing rights of public participation in decision-making did not guarantee greater priority would be given to protecting the environment but it was at least a prerequisite:

“You can only care about what you know about.”

The Biscathorpe consultation runs until 12 February 2025. Comments should be sent by email to VE.RT@planninginspectorate.gov.uk using the appeal reference APP/Q2500/W/22/3296831.

We put a series of questions to Lincolnshire about the consultation and where comments would be published. We have not yet had a response.

Amanda Suddaby, a member of SOS Biscathorpe (SOSB), the local group which has opposed Egdon’s plans since 2014, said:

“It’s mind-boggling that it’s taken us ten years to get to a point where a decision-maker will for the first time ever have to take into account the inevitable climate impact of burning any oil that might be extracted at Biscathorpe. We hope that it is the turning point we need and the Inspector will fully appreciate the consequences of approving any new fossil fuel extraction”

Mathilda Dennis, local farmer and SOSB member, who brought the successful High Court challenge against oil production at Biscathorpe on behalf of the group, said:

“It’s extremely disappointing that we are having to go through the Appeal process yet again. Over the last ten years, it has been made abundantly clear that there is no local consent for the development – everyone who could say ‘no’ has done so – yet Egdon continue to push ahead event though they have not actually encountered any oil yet. This is still exploration! We’d like to ask them to reconsider and withdraw their plans, not just for Biscathorpe’s sake but for the sake of the whole global population.”

SOS Biscathorpe is calling for a public hearing on the second Biscathorpe appeal. It has argued that the outcome could set a precedent for future decisions on onshore oil and gas. The group intends to oppose the plans again. It is raising money for expert and legal advice.

DrillOrDrop will report on the comments if they are published. We will also report on any appeal hearing.

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