An expanded oil and gas site at Wressle in North Lincolnshire could add more than 900,000 tonnes of carbon emissions over its life, a new report has shown.

But the operator, Egdon Resources, has said this would not be significant in local or national terms.

Egdon wants to add two new wells to its site near Scunthorpe and pipe off the gas that comes up with the oil.

Following a landmark judgement from the Supreme Court last year, the company is required to calculate the climate impact of its plans, including the burning of any oil and gas.

Egdon commissioned reports by the Sustain:able consultancy to assess likely emissions from the operation of the site and the burning of predicted hydrocarbon production.

The reports are included in information submitted by Egdon to North Lincolnshire Council. Officials at the authority must decide whether a future planning application for the Wressle expansion would need a detailed environmental impact assessment (EIA).

Egdon has argued in its EIA screening request that the expansion would be unlikely to have significant effects on the environment because of its “size, nature or location”.

A consultation is now open and runs until Monday 17 March 2025.

Details

Two additional wells at Wressle have been predicted to produce 1,039,733 barrels of oil (137,594 tonnes) until 2039. The existing Wressle-1 well has been forecast to produce 311,580 barrels of oil (41,233 tonnes) until 2034.

Sustain:able estimated the climate impact of emissions from the burning of sold oil and gas from Wressle-1, 2 and 3. Sustain:able called them category 11 scope 3 emissions. They were the focus of the Supreme Court case. The consultancy also estimated other emissions from the expanded site.

The total baseline emissions for the existing Wressle 1 development have been estimated to be 121,216 -129,885 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e).

The figures show that, if approved, the extended site with the two new wells and Wressle-1 could generate up to 918,000tCO2e.

Egdon said:

“Despite the increase above the current Wressle 1 baseline, these emissions represent a very small percentage of the UK Carbon Budgets.”

Egdon said the future category 11 emissions from the use of Wressle oil would “represent a minor fraction of the UK carbon budget”.

It estimated that the highest impact would be in the period of the 5^th carbon budget (2028-2032). Wressle category 11 emissions would be 0.0216%-0.0224% of the budget, the company said.

It estimated that the total emissions from an expanded Wressle would be 0.0241% of the UK 5^th carbon budget.

Expansion at Wressle would represent 0.6% of North Lincolnshire’s 6^th carbon budget (2033-2037), Egdon estimated.

The company said:

“This, too, is judged to be not significant.”

The company concluded:

“The Proposed Development does not constitute development which requires an EIA as it is unlikely that the Proposed Development will result in significant effects on the environment by virtue of its size, nature, or location.”

DrillOrDrop will report on responses to Egdon’s screening request and will follow the progress of any future planning application.

Planning battle

Egdon first submitted a planning application for the Wressle expansion in March 2024.

The scheme was approved by planning officers in September 2024 under delegated powers. They did not take into account the expected scope 3 emissions from the expansion, even though the Supreme Court judgement had been given three months earlier.

Environmental campaigner Sandie Stratford brought a successful legal challenge to the first application and the Wressle permission was quashed in November 2024.

For more details of Egdon’s Wressle plans and the story so far, please see DrillOrDrop’s earlier articles:

Expansion plans published for Wressle oil site (27 March 2024)

Go-ahead for Wressle expansion (16 September 2024)

Campaigner warns of legal challenge over expansion of North Lincs oil and gas site (16 October 2024)

Wressle permission quashed (12 November 2024)

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