50多年来，北海油气一直是英国政治的隐性支柱：其收入在20世纪80年代中期峰值约占GDP的3%，曾缓解20世纪70年代的财政危机，并在2000年代支撑“经济好日子”的叙事。自世纪之交的产量峰值以来，英国石油产量几乎持续下滑；过去十年北海劳动力从45万人缩至20万人，而且大型设施关闭加速了收缩。

行业将“坍塌”归因于政策：2022年能源价格飙升后引入并被保留的暴利税，使英国有效税率达78%，位居全球最高之列并抑制投资。许可同样收紧：2025年自钻探开始以来首次未批准任何新许可证；相较之下，挪威批准40个新项目，并将油气产量提高到约400万桶/日，是英国的4倍。

英国盆地更老、更小且成本更高：几乎需要每桶近40美元才可盈亏平衡，超过挪威可比门槛的两倍，而可采储量约90亿桶，不到挪威的一半。与此同时，国际能源署预测今年全球过剩接近400万桶/日（约占需求的4%）；摩根大通认为这一“超级过剩”可能把油价推至2026年的50美元出头，并在2027年末降至30美元水平，除非产油国大幅减产。2月对Rosebank油田的决定将成为首次考验，而一边是“公正转型”的压力与每月约1000个岗位流失，另一边是放宽政策的政治代价。

For more than 50 years, North Sea oil and gas has been a hidden current in British politics: revenues peaked at about 3% of GDP in the mid-1980s, helped ease 1970s fiscal crises, and later fed 2000s “good-times” sentiment. Since the turn-of-the-century peak, UK oil output has fallen almost continuously; over the past decade the North Sea workforce has shrunk from 450,000 to 200,000, with major shutdowns accelerating losses.

The industry calls the slide a policy-driven collapse: a windfall tax introduced in 2022 and kept in place lifts Britain’s effective tax rate to 78%, among the world’s highest, deterring investment. Licensing is also tighter: in 2025, no new licences were approved for the first time since drilling began; Norway approved 40 new projects and ramped production to about 4m barrels a day, four times Britain.

Britain’s basin is older, smaller, and costlier: it needs nearly $40 a barrel to break even, more than double Norway’s comparable threshold, and recoverable reserves are about 9bn barrels, less than half Norway’s. Meanwhile the IEA forecasts a global surplus of nearly 4m barrels a day this year (about 4% of demand), and JPMorgan sees a “superglut” pushing prices to the low $50s in 2026 and the $30s by late 2027 unless producers make drastic cuts; February’s Rosebank decision becomes the first test amid “just transition” pressures and roughly 1,000 job losses per month.

Source: The collapse of Britain’s oil-and-gas industry

Subtitle: Labour’s policy is a muddle. But critics’ talk of a North Sea renaissance is fanciful

Dateline: 1月 08, 2026 07:32 上午