I understand this executive perfectly well. Oil and gas do not operate on electoral calendars or media cycles. These are long-arc businesses with project timelines that stretch over decades, not press conferences. You sink capital upfront, often obscene amounts of it, and then you wait. And wait some more. One single governmental term—even a full one—is a rounding error in the lifecycle of a serious oil and gas project.
The industry knows this. Long cycles are not a revelation; they are the operating environment. Oil and gas companies have spent generations learning how to navigate political insanity of all kinds. Remember, many of them operate—or have operated—in places that make the North Sea look like a spa retreat. Pre-war Russia. Yemen. Iran. Libya. A whole catalog of jurisdictions where risk is not an abstract concept but a daily reality. If you survive there, you develop a formidable toolkit: political risk management, contractual armor, exit strategies, and a very high tolerance for madness.
And if all else fails, you leave. But that is always the last resort. More often than not, companies stay and adapt, because adaptation is cheaper than abandonment. That is why saying that the North Sea has become worse than some of the world’s more unhinged destinations is not a throwaway line. It is a brutal indictment.
Which brings us neatly to British policymaking. The sheer incoherence of it would be funny if it were not so destructive. Oil and gas did not even catch a breather under Boris Johnson, despite all the noise and posturing. The sector was treated as politically radioactive, economically disposable, and morally suspect—all at once. That combination is hard to beat for sheer self-harm.
Still, I have a hunch this farce is nearing a very unceremonious end. I have rarely seen this level of anger in the industry, and more importantly, I am starting to see it leak into politics. Not Labour, of course—they are structurally deaf to anything outside their script—but others are beginning to read the room. When enough voters, jobs, and revenues are at stake, ideology suddenly becomes negotiable.
The North Sea will come again. Not politely. Not quietly. Big time.
