Trump Claims UK Has 500 Years Of Oil Reserves Left In The North Sea

• Donald Trump softened threats over Greenland and dominated out defense power action, whereas oil costs fell close to 2% on Thursday amid de-escalation and headlines from the World Financial Forum.
• Trump’s North Sea claims had been extensively disputed, as regulators love the North Sea Transition Authority dispute the basin is oldschool.
• Specialists unique that nearly all reserves already extracted, and remaining supplies may per chance well also just last a protracted time and even years.

The U.S. stock market has pared aid heavy losses it posted earlier in the week after U.S. President Donald Trump relented on his risk to slap European and NATO worldwide locations with tariffs for opposing his push to sort Greenland. Trump also dominated out the utilization of defense power power to take over the semi-self sustaining Danish territory, but acknowledged the U.S. will unruffled pursue possession of the country.

In inequity, oil costs private reversed direction, slipping close to 2% after Trump softened threats in opposition to Greenland and Iran. Whereas President Trump dominated headlines and discussions at the World Financial Forum (WEF) in Davos 2026 along with his Greenland push and concerns over globalism, his controversial claims about renewable vitality also drew consideration. To wit, Trump claimed that the North Sea has 500 years of Oil & Gas reserves left, and pushed aside Europe’s inexperienced vitality insurance policies as a “rip-off”. Trump also renewed his criticism of the UK government for restricting oil and gas drilling in the North Sea, as smartly as its decision to retain the vitality profits levy (EPL). 

“The UK produces precise one-third of the total vitality from all sources that it did in 1999 – mediate of that, one-third – and as well they’re sitting on high of the North Sea, one among the ideal reserves any place in the realm, but they don’t suppose it, and that’s one clarification why their vitality has reached catastrophically low ranges, with equally excessive costs,” Trump acknowledged.

“There are windmills all over the assign Europe. There are windmills all over, and as well they’re losers. One element I’ve observed is that the extra windmills a country has, the extra cash that country loses and the worse that country is doing,” Trump acknowledged, also claiming that China manufactures windmills and sells them at big profits but by no come installs them itself.

However, a couple of Trump’s claims are verifiably counterfeit. The North Sea is a oldschool oil and gas province, which come distinguished of the easily accessible oil and gas has already been produced, with over 90% of recoverable reserves extracted in the UK sector. 

Essentially basically based on the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), the UK’s vitality regulator, the North Sea has ~2.9 billion barrels of oil equal at the waste of 2024, suggesting exclusively a protracted time of present, no longer a total bunch of years as Trump claims.

Certainly, at unique production rates, some analyses counsel the remaining reserves may per chance well last exclusively about seven years, no longer centuries, highlighting the out of the ordinary overestimation in Trump’s claim. The UK’s indigenous crude oil production in 2024 clocked in at ~320,000 barrels per day, sufficient for precise 20% of the country’s consumption. To exacerbate issues, exclusively 13% of that oil is refined in the country, a figure the ECIU has projected will descend to 1% by 2030 as North Sea production continues to decline. 

“After better than fifty years, the UK has burned most of its gas and what’s left of the oil is extra and more difficult and pricey to extract,’’ Tessa Khan, government director at environmental campaign team Uplift, acknowledged. “Irrespective of any unique drilling, the UK shall be dependent on gas imports for close to two-thirds of its gas in precisely 5 years time and nearly 100 per cent by 2050.”

Trump’s claims about wind vitality in Europe and China are also unfounded. An prognosis by College College London has revealed that wind vitality has lowered UK vitality imports by 12% by task of interconnectors into the country and saved British buyers ~£104 billion ($140 billion) on their vitality bills between 2010 and 2023. Wind vitality is on the total more affordable than most varied vitality sources in Europe, seriously when when when put next with fossil gasoline picks. 

Despite recent inflationary pressures causing a transient waste in trace reductions, onshore wind stays one among presumably the most affordable sources of unique electricity, in most cases undercutting unique coal and gas vegetation. The Levelized Price of Electrical energy (LCOE) for wind dropped dramatically by over 60% between 2010 and 2021. Whereas costs plateaued or rose a limited spherical 2022–2023 due to present chain points and rising passion rates, they’re anticipated to descend one more time as inflation eases and turbine costs recover. High gas costs, which exceeded €50/MWh in 2024, obtain renewable vitality love wind a much less costly replacement.

And at last, Trump’s claims about wind vitality in China seem like exclusively partly just. Essentially basically based on a file by Ember, China spent $625 billion on easy vitality investments in 2024, apt for 31% of the global total, making it the ideal investor in renewable vitality worldwide. Opposite to Trump’s claims, records indicates that China leads the realm in wind vitality deployment, with installed potential exceeding 600 GW by early 2026, and with the country accelerating deployment in recent years (spherical 100 GW in 2025 by myself). China operates nearly half of of the realm’s offshore wind potential, reaching 52 GW in 2025, better than the EU and UK mixed.

By Alex Kimani for Oilprice.com

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Alex Kimani

Alex Kimani is a outmoded finance writer, investor, engineer and researcher for Safehaven.com. 

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