BP has said it is putting its North Sea business up for sale, a move it says would bring an end to 60 years of oil and gas production in the region.

The decision follows a review of the group’s operations as BP looks to slim down its wider portfolio. The North Sea business includes five production hubs—two in the central North Sea and three west of Shetland—and employs about 1,100 people.

Sale Linked To BP’s Portfolio Review

BP said the sale is part of efforts to refocus capital and direct investment towards what it calls its highest-value opportunities. The company did not name potential buyers, but it said it expects the assets to be better positioned under new ownership.

BP chief executive Meg O’Neill, who became CEO in April, said earlier this year that the North Sea still had “untapped potential”. Announcing the sale on Friday, she said BP believes the operation’s assets and workforce could attract an owner willing to support the next phase of the business.

BP said it is seeking an outcome that recognises what it called the value of the North Sea operation, describing it as having world-class staff, resilient assets and a long heritage.

Jobs And Safety During The Sale Process

BP said it will continue to run the North Sea operations safely and reliably throughout the sale process. The company said it remains committed to maintaining production and operational standards while the transaction is progressed.

The North Sea business produced 117,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2025. That output is a small share of BP’s total production, which the company reported at 2.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.

The sale could potentially generate £2bn for BP. The Financial Times reported last month that BP had been in talks with Ithaca Energy about selling its North Sea assets for about that amount, but the discussions ended without a deal.

Political Backdrop In The UK And US

The move comes as political debate continues over the pace of North Sea drilling. Earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham said he had told US President Donald Trump he would take a “pragmatic approach” on North Sea oil and gas.

Trump, some trade unions, industry figures and some Labour MPs have backed plans for increased drilling in the region.

BP said the UK has been part of its business for more than 100 years and will continue to play a significant role in its future. The company also said it is proud of the jobs it supports and its contribution to the UK economy.

BP employs about 13,960 people in the UK.

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31 July 2026

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BP is selling out of the North Sea after taking its share of the profits for decades. The next owner will inherit ageing fields and the cleanup, and if that owner cannot pay, the taxpayers may eventually be left with the bill.

Britain had a long oil fairytale, but where is the lasting wealth belonging to the British people? Norway saved much of its oil income, but that fortune may become a target when green politicians start treating oil producing countries like the tobacco industry, using courts, liability claims and compensation demands to milk whatever is left.

The irony is that Britain spent the money, while Norway may be punished because it saved it.

1 hour ago, webfact said:

BP chief executive Meg O’Neill, who became CEO in April, said earlier this year that the North Sea still had “untapped potential”. Announcing the sale on Friday, she said BP believes the operation’s assets and workforce could attract an owner willing to support the next phase of the business.

Red flag? Meaning the North Sea has actually been tapped almost dry? Bad news for the SNP if that's the case, and UK more generally.

13 minutes ago, ronnie50 said:

Red flag? Meaning the North Sea has actually been tapped almost dry? Bad news for the SNP if that's the case, and UK more generally.

The North Sea is not dry. In many discovered oil reservoirs, roughly 54 to 60 percent of the original oil remains underground, depending on the reservoir formation and geology. The problem is that much of it cannot be recovered economically with today’s technology, costs and oil prices. There are also significant undiscovered resources. The Norwegian Offshore Directorate estimates that undiscovered resources account for around 22 percent of the total resources on the Norwegian continental shelf, although I personally believe there could be more.

I worked for many years for major oil companies, including Amoco, the US predecessor of BP. The reality is that we sucked at operating older fields.

It was better to sell them onto more nimble, smaller companies that didn't have layer upon layer of management and require 100 signatures and meetings out the wazoo to change the brand of toilet paper.

Not to mention, the majors are a lot more risk averse to drilling wells with a higher chance of being a dry hole. A smaller company can come in and drill them for a lot less money. And if they turn out to be dusters, careers aren't derailed. That's the business.

This isn't necessarily bad news. As long as regulators don't fall asleep on the job.

Um, howzabout END OIL! Think what you want about her, Greta's right.

34 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Um, howzabout END OIL! Think what you want about her, Greta's right.

Oil is connected to wealth, and wealth is connected to power. Both are worth protecting, which is why Greta’s ideology is dangerous for many reasons. There are too many to explain if you are not willing to see the cycle of where we are today, and what comes next.

A

I discuss my statement and AI says

Assuming you mean Greta’s ideology, your core point is stronger than simply saying, “We need oil.”

Oil is tied to wealth because modern economies were built around concentrated, reliable and transportable energy. Wealth creates political and military power, and that power protects the energy system that created it. Oil therefore sits inside a circle of industry, finance, taxation, pensions, transport, food production, national security and geopolitics. It is not merely a fuel that governments can decide to stop using.

That is why the slogan “stop oil” becomes dangerous when treated as a complete policy rather than a direction of travel. Greta Thunberg is right that climate change requires urgent action and that powerful interests protect fossil-fuel profits. But identifying the danger does not automatically provide a workable route out of the system.

We are trapped by the status quo in several ways.

First, almost everything depends on oil somewhere in the chain. Farming machinery, fertilizers, mining, shipping, roads, construction, plastics, medicine, aviation and military defence cannot all be replaced overnight. Even renewable systems must initially be mined, manufactured, transported and installed through the existing fossil-powered economy.

Second, governments depend on the wealth generated by energy. Norway is an obvious example. Petroleum income supports employment, suppliers, taxation, pensions, the currency and the sovereign wealth fund. Removing production too quickly would not merely punish oil companies. It could weaken the welfare state and transfer production, income and geopolitical influence to countries with lower environmental standards.

Third, power does not disappear when Western countries stop producing oil. Demand may remain, while Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and other producers gain market share, revenue and strategic leverage. A country can reduce its own production statistics while still importing the same energy and exporting the environmental and moral responsibility.

Fourth, the alternative energy system creates new dependencies. Instead of dependence on oil-producing states, countries may become dependent on minerals, processing capacity, batteries, electrical infrastructure and supply chains controlled elsewhere. The energy transition is therefore not an escape from geopolitics. It is a rearrangement of geopolitics. Research on the energy-security problem describes precisely this trade-off between reliability, affordability and environmental goals.

The real trap is that we cannot safely continue as before, but we also cannot simply shut down the machinery that sustains eight billion people. Climate absolutism and oil absolutism are therefore mirror images. One pretends oil can disappear without enormous consequences. The other pretends oil can continue indefinitely without enormous consequences.

A realistic transition would use existing oil wealth and industrial competence to build what replaces oil, while gradually reducing dependence as reliable alternatives become capable of carrying the load. Oil companies may actually be among the few institutions with enough engineering knowledge, capital and project capacity to build large-scale replacement systems, provided policy forces capital in that direction. Some research suggests that oil companies moving early toward low-carbon business models may outperform those that delay.

So yes, we are deeply trapped in the present system. But that does not mean remaining there is safe. It means the escape must be engineered, financed and sequenced, not shouted into existence. The dangerous ideology is not wanting to move away from oil. The danger is believing moral certainty can replace the practical understanding of energy, wealth and power.

Thank you for that detailed analysis. "Wealth" is part of the problem. A few haves and a lot of have-nots.

So how do we break this cycle? It seems the world is resigned to the status quo and no govt is even trying to STOP OIL!

11 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Thank you for that detailed analysis. "Wealth" is part of the problem. A few haves and a lot of have-nots.

So how do we break this cycle? It seems the world is resigned to the status quo and no govt is even trying to STOP OIL!

The UK began phasing down oil and gas exploration and investment, believing the transition could happen faster than reality allowed. Then the war in Ukraine exposed how important domestic energy production still was, and the later escalation in the Middle East made energy security even more important.

Norway faced much of the same political pressure as the UK, but luckily we had people in government who did not give in. We continued exploration, maintained the technology, competence and infrastructure, and understood that an energy transition cannot be built by destroying the energy security we still depend on.

When the war in Ukraine started, Norway was able to respond. The UK had already weakened its own industry and discovered that issuing new licences does not suddenly bring back years of lost investment and production capacity.

3 hours ago, Hummin said:

The UK began phasing down oil and gas exploration and investment, believing the transition could happen faster than reality allowed. Then the war in Ukraine exposed how important domestic energy production still was, and the later escalation in the Middle East made energy security even more important.

Norway faced much of the same political pressure as the UK, but luckily we had people in government who did not give in. We continued exploration, maintained the technology, competence and infrastructure, and understood that an energy transition cannot be built by destroying the energy security we still depend on.

When the war in Ukraine started, Norway was able to respond. The UK had already weakened its own industry and discovered that issuing new licences does not suddenly bring back years of lost investment and production capacity.

I have to say, even as an activist, this is pretty discouraging, maybe not for us but for the next generations.

1 hour ago, unblocktheplanet said:

I have to say, even as an activist, this is pretty discouraging, maybe not for us but for the next generations.

The main problem is overpopulation and the complete lack of common sense around what we buy and consume every day.

The human population remained below one billion for almost our entire history. We reached one billion around 1804, two billion in 1927, four billion in 1974, and eight billion in 2022. It took humanity roughly 300,000 years to reach the first billion, and little more than 200 years to add another seven billion. From four to eight billion took less than 50 years.

Take something as simple as garden furniture. When I grew up, it cost a lot of money, but it lasted for decades if you maintained it. Today, we buy cheap plastic furniture and are lucky if it survives two seasons. The same applies to almost everything around the house. Cheap, mass-produced Asian rubbish, made to be used and thrown away.

Then we have cars. For how many decades have we burned oil simply for fun? Who really needs three, four, five or eight-litre engines with turbochargers just to drive around?

We also built poorer houses than my grandfather and great-grandfather did because electricity and oil were cheap. My grandparents saved and preserved everything they could from the farm and garden. My grandfather built the same kind of solid houses as his father and grandfather, using proper natural materials. They were expensive to build, but they lasted and were healthy to live in.

During this population and consumption explosion, we have transformed most of the Earth’s natural land, destroyed wetlands and removed vast areas of natural forest. And natural forest cannot simply be replaced by planted forest. A tree plantation may produce timber and absorb some carbon, but it does not replace the biodiversity, soil systems, water cycles, fungi, insects, animals and ecological balance of an old natural forest.

The loss of biodiversity is therefore just as important as the number of trees. We are dismantling systems that developed over thousands or millions of years, while still not fully understanding how all the parts depend on each other. We know enough to understand that the damage matters, but we do not yet know the full long-term consequences for climate, food production, water systems, disease, soil fertility or the general health and stability of the planet as we have known it.

Now poorer countries understandably want the same lifestyle we have advertised to them for decades, and that is where the real problem becomes impossible to ignore. It is not only that each person consumes too much. The number of people consuming has increased from one billion to eight billion, while the lifestyle we promote is based on endless growth, cheap products, waste and replacement.

Oil was never the problem. Oil was a gift from the gods. It gave us modern agriculture, medicine, transport, machinery, heating and opportunities earlier generations could never have imagined. The problem was what we did with it. We abused it, wasted it and built an entire throwaway society around it, just as we seem to do with everything that could have benefited everyone.

3 hours ago, Hummin said:

The main problem is overpopulation and the complete lack of common sense around what we buy and consume every day.

The human population remained below one billion for almost our entire history. We reached one billion around 1804, two billion in 1927, four billion in 1974, and eight billion in 2022. It took humanity roughly 300,000 years to reach the first billion, and little more than 200 years to add another seven billion. From four to eight billion took less than 50 years.

Take something as simple as garden furniture. When I grew up, it cost a lot of money, but it lasted for decades if you maintained it. Today, we buy cheap plastic furniture and are lucky if it survives two seasons. The same applies to almost everything around the house. Cheap, mass-produced Asian rubbish, made to be used and thrown away.

Then we have cars. For how many decades have we burned oil simply for fun? Who really needs three, four, five or eight-litre engines with turbochargers just to drive around?

We also built poorer houses than my grandfather and great-grandfather did because electricity and oil were cheap. My grandparents saved and preserved everything they could from the farm and garden. My grandfather built the same kind of solid houses as his father and grandfather, using proper natural materials. They were expensive to build, but they lasted and were healthy to live in.

During this population and consumption explosion, we have transformed most of the Earth’s natural land, destroyed wetlands and removed vast areas of natural forest. And natural forest cannot simply be replaced by planted forest. A tree plantation may produce timber and absorb some carbon, but it does not replace the biodiversity, soil systems, water cycles, fungi, insects, animals and ecological balance of an old natural forest.

The loss of biodiversity is therefore just as important as the number of trees. We are dismantling systems that developed over thousands or millions of years, while still not fully understanding how all the parts depend on each other. We know enough to understand that the damage matters, but we do not yet know the full long-term consequences for climate, food production, water systems, disease, soil fertility or the general health and stability of the planet as we have known it.

Now poorer countries understandably want the same lifestyle we have advertised to them for decades, and that is where the real problem becomes impossible to ignore. It is not only that each person consumes too much. The number of people consuming has increased from one billion to eight billion, while the lifestyle we promote is based on endless growth, cheap products, waste and replacement.

Oil was never the problem. Oil was a gift from the gods. It gave us modern agriculture, medicine, transport, machinery, heating and opportunities earlier generations could never have imagined. The problem was what we did with it. We abused it, wasted it and built an entire throwaway society around it, just as we seem to do with everything that could have benefited everyone.

The problem with the UK’s use of oil is two fold, the income was pished away on tax cuts rather than invested, and it’s not like Norway didn’t demonstrate an alternative.

And regardless of all arguments about drill/not drill, it’s running out.

As you rightly point out out oil has been used for (it did not give) a lot more than just fuel.

There will come a time when following generations will struggle to grasp the, by then historical fact, that we burned oil.

North Seal Oil and gas are strategic resources, they are not sufficient to come even close to supplying the UK’s energy needs and in any case always be charged at the international rates, they will never reduce UK energy costs.

The term ‘mature oil and gas fields’ is a euphemism, it means they are depleted and running out.

BP understands this, hence the sell off.

Edited August 1Aug 1 by Chomper Higgot

13 hours ago, Hummin said:

The main problem is overpopulation and the complete lack of common sense around what we buy and consume every day.

The human population remained below one billion for almost our entire history. We reached one billion around 1804, two billion in 1927, four billion in 1974, and eight billion in 2022. It took humanity roughly 300,000 years to reach the first billion, and little more than 200 years to add another seven billion. From four to eight billion took less than 50 years.

Take something as simple as garden furniture. When I grew up, it cost a lot of money, but it lasted for decades if you maintained it. Today, we buy cheap plastic furniture and are lucky if it survives two seasons. The same applies to almost everything around the house. Cheap, mass-produced Asian rubbish, made to be used and thrown away.

Then we have cars. For how many decades have we burned oil simply for fun? Who really needs three, four, five or eight-litre engines with turbochargers just to drive around?

We also built poorer houses than my grandfather and great-grandfather did because electricity and oil were cheap. My grandparents saved and preserved everything they could from the farm and garden. My grandfather built the same kind of solid houses as his father and grandfather, using proper natural materials. They were expensive to build, but they lasted and were healthy to live in.

During this population and consumption explosion, we have transformed most of the Earth’s natural land, destroyed wetlands and removed vast areas of natural forest. And natural forest cannot simply be replaced by planted forest. A tree plantation may produce timber and absorb some carbon, but it does not replace the biodiversity, soil systems, water cycles, fungi, insects, animals and ecological balance of an old natural forest.

The loss of biodiversity is therefore just as important as the number of trees. We are dismantling systems that developed over thousands or millions of years, while still not fully understanding how all the parts depend on each other. We know enough to understand that the damage matters, but we do not yet know the full long-term consequences for climate, food production, water systems, disease, soil fertility or the general health and stability of the planet as we have known it.

Now poorer countries understandably want the same lifestyle we have advertised to them for decades, and that is where the real problem becomes impossible to ignore. It is not only that each person consumes too much. The number of people consuming has increased from one billion to eight billion, while the lifestyle we promote is based on endless growth, cheap products, waste and replacement.

Oil was never the problem. Oil was a gift from the gods. It gave us modern agriculture, medicine, transport, machinery, heating and opportunities earlier generations could never have imagined. The problem was what we did with it. We abused it, wasted it and built an entire throwaway society around it, just as we seem to do with everything that could have benefited everyone.

Very insightful to tie all these things together at their root, too many people!

Almost everyone has the disease of consumption. More, flashier, enviable, we’ve got a closetful.

My father grew up in the Depression. He never threw anything away. I do my best to fix everything when it breaks.

But nothing is enough. The tide of consumers is inexorable. We were hoodwinked to believe cheap and easy was what we wanted.

The greedheads, the banksters, the corporados, the fatcats, the industrialists have kept us slaves forever. The robber barons had us all figured out.

I went to prison for defending this, my frontyard view. It dramatised the issue in the public mind and this tiny patch of earth was saved while 90% around it was clearcut.

I have to admit I love eight cylinders. But I’ll have to give it up, won’t I.

I have no idea how old you are, (still) Hummin. I did what I could and it wasn't enough. Maybe I'll get to do some more of it. But it feels selfish to be glad I'll die before things get really bad.

Edited August 2Aug 2 by unblocktheplanet
add

19 hours ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Um, howzabout END OIL! Think what you want about her, Greta's right.

We are maybe another 50 years away from a full transition away from oil?

Just now, save the frogs said:

We are maybe another 50 years away from a full transition away from oil?

We're already past the tipping point. 50 years from now will have seen hundreds of manmade cataclysms in every one of those years. Starvation will be a big one. Climate change is Earth'd way of making human populations manageable.

If humans survive extinction, and that's a very big if, it will take geologic time for the Mother to restore herself. Who knows what species may evolve. There's one thing. I doubt they'll be too friendly to humans.

This is not just a Saturday monster movie, kids, it's a double feature.

1 minute ago, unblocktheplanet said:

If humans survive extinction, and that's a very big if, it will take geologic time for the Mother to restore herself. Who knows what species may evolve. There's one thing. I doubt they'll be too friendly to humans.

Maybe it's time for the "human species project" to come to an end.

Just go to sleep and never wake up. No more problems to deal with.

Edited August 2Aug 2 by save the frogs

12 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Very insightful to tie all these things together at their root, too many people!

Almost everyone has the disease of consumption. More, flashier, enviable, we’ve got a closetful.

My father grew up in the Depression. He never threw anything away. I do my best to fix everything when it breaks.

But nothing is enough. The tide of consumers is inexorable. We were hoodwinked to believe cheap and easy was what we wanted.

The greedheads, the banksters, the corporados, the fatcats, the industrialists have kept us slaves forever. The robber barons had us all figured out.

I went to prison for defending this, my frontyard view. It dramatised the issue in the public mind and this tiny patch of earth was saved while 90% around it was clearcut.

I have to admit I love eight cylinders. But I’ll have to give it up, won’t I.

As someone who worked on oil platforms for almost three decades, one of the hardest things to ignore was all the excess gas burnt straight into the atmosphere. Flying from Stavanger to Aberdeen at night, you could see the flames from every production platform across the North Sea.

Just imagine how much valuable gas was wasted because nobody was willing to invest in capturing and using it. Again, oil was never the problem. Waste, greed and lack of common sense were.

You can blame individual responsibility, but is it that easy? Or did our leaders realise they could not make too many restrictive decisions? They had to give people bread and circuses, along with promises they could not keep.

That is the cycle of political life. Promises that cannot be kept, unpopular decisions that must be avoided, and the need to please those who create jobs and offer people a future that looks bright.

It becomes a vicious circle of trust, betrayal and corruption, one way or another, all built around short term solutions at the expense of the environment.

Industrialisation is only around 250 years old. How much have we managed to destroy in that short time, and how much have we left for the generations to come?

I am guilty. Are you guilty? Are we all guilty, or is this simply human nature?

I do not think we as individuals are guilty. But as a species, we are.

It was not your fault that your car used a gallon a mile, or that society was built around cheap oil. We all lived within the system we inherited.

I actually felt some guilt while working in the oil industry, and I know many people carry guilt for what they do in life. But guilt is not the solution. Then you see politicians exploiting that guilt, doing next to nothing for the environment while using it as an excuse to create new taxes and encourage even more consumption in the name of saving the planet. It becomes a whole circle of stupidity.

Eventually, I realised I could not carry the weight of humanity on my shoulders. At some point, you have to brush it off and simply try to live the best life you can. None of us can take responsibility for everything that is wrong with the world.

What I can do is take back some of our grandparents’ values. Grow some of my own food, live a simpler life in Isaan, eat clean food and waste less. But Isaan is not my whole life. As long as I have opportunities, I will use them too. I am not pretending to be an environmentalist.

It is not our responsibility to fix the whole world, but it is our responsibility to understand what is happening, be conscious of the consequences of how we live, and perhaps pull things in the right direction where we actually have some influence. Local actions may matter more than simply allowing ourselves to be led by grand solutions and political slogans.

My gift to the world was simply not having children. In my own small way, that means one, two or perhaps three fewer people consuming resources as I have, followed by their children and the generations after them, multiplying again and again. For me, it stops here. 😉

Sorry for the long rant. This is something I have been thinking about for a long time, and, to put it mildly, I have been offended and annoyed by the lack of understanding of some very simple logical things.

22 minutes ago, save the frogs said:

Maybe it's time for the "human species project" to come to an end.

Just go to sleep and never wake up. No more problems to deal with.