North Sea Oil & Gas

 There is a discussion taking place about exploitation in the North Sea and whether the UK government should give permission. The reasons agains are clear, any further development will add to global warming. The argument against says that the developments will create jobs, reduce the UK's reliance on foreign sources and bring down resources.

The last two arguments are rather questionable. As I understand the situation any one producing the gas and oil can sell at world market prices and is there any restriction on who they can sell the oil or gas to. So if someone makes a offer above global prices what happens.

If the country was really serious about the cost then the licences should only be granted on two condition. The first being that the UK has total control over where the oil and gas go. even more important must be the price. If they are only sold at world prices than the UK consumer has no benefit of chaeper prices because it is UK oil and gas.  So the second and most important condition would be a variation on a fixed price contract. That is the oil and gas would be sold at a price negotiated with he government, perhaps fixed at the level preceding the invasion of Ukraine or at world prices whichever is lower. 

This would obviously restrict the profit and presumably to taxes that the government would get but if properly implemented could lead to significantly  lower prices for the UK consumer and thus lower the cost of living.

Let be clear I am not an expert in the way prices paid at the petrol pump and by the energy industry are calculated and regulated so this is a broad outline of a plan . It would need to be carefully pl;anned as private industry is very adept at looking and using loopholes. It might even be that the companies would not with to do the extraction with these conditions but when they first started oil prices were much lower so there would still be a sizeable profit, just not gargantuan!