BP chief executive Meg O'Neill has said the North Sea "just doesn't compete for capital" with the oil major's other operations, as she urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to scrap windfall taxes on oil and gas producers.
O'Neill, who took over as BP's boss in April, announced last week that the company was putting its North Sea business up for sale, bringing an end to more than 60 years of production in the region.
She said other companies had already come forward with unsolicited offers for the assets since BP put up the for-sale sign.
"There are plenty of other players that have approached us unsolicited, expressing interest in the basin, and so I am very optimistic that the assets that we have today will continue to be profitable in the hands of a future owner," she told CNBC.
The sale has fuelled fears that a heavy windfall tax on North Sea oil and gas firms risks pushing the industry out of Britain altogether, leaving the country more reliant on imported energy.
How the windfall tax has changed
The levy was introduced by the Conservative government in 2022 at a rate of 25 per cent on North Sea profits. It was due to expire in 2025 but was extended to 2030 after Labour took power, with the rate also raised to 38 per cent. Profits in the basin are now taxed at an effective rate of 78 per cent, which companies say has made operating there increasingly unviable.
In its results for the first half of this year, BP said Labour's decision to extend the tax had added £401 million to its bill last year, with a further £72 million added so far this year.
Despite the extra tax, BP's profits surged to £6.6 billion in the first six months of 2026, up from £2.8 billion a year earlier, as the company cashed in on a rise in global oil prices triggered by the Iran war that broke out in February.
O'Neill's message to Burnham
O'Neill said she had spoken to Burnham directly and urged him to back Britain's fossil fuel industry.
"The UK is still using a huge amount of oil and natural gas every single day, and we ought to be using our domestic resources first instead of buying those resources from a third party," she said.
"I've had a conversation with the prime minister where he, you know, reinforced his desire to work closely with business, to be pragmatic. And the message I left him with was, you know, the UK gets 75 per cent of its energy from fossil fuels today, so that's oil and natural gas," she added.
"The first barrel of oil we consume and molecule of natural gas we need should be coming from the UK North Sea, where we generate jobs, we generate tax revenue, we generate all those additional positive impacts," she said.
BP's North Sea business includes five oil platforms and employs around 1,100 people.
Pressure over new drilling
O'Neill's comments are likely to add to pressure on the government to approve new North Sea projects, after Ed Miliband blocked further drilling while serving as energy secretary under Sir Keir Starmer.
Scotland's First Minister John Swinney also weighed into the row on Monday, describing the windfall tax as "destructive" and saying it was "harming investment and jobs in Scotland", adding that the prime minister needed to look at the issue "as a matter of urgency".
US President Donald Trump has also pressed Burnham to restart drilling in the North Sea, saying Britain was "essentially bankrupt" without tapping its oil and gas reserves.
