Tory shadow defence minister Mark Francois has taken a swipe at Ed Miliband and called on Britain to “drill baby, drill” after it emerged today that oil fields surrounding the islands are larger than estimated.
News today revealed that recoverable reserves of oil near the Falklands are now valued at an eye-watering £74 billion.
An independent assessment of the Sea Lion field, within the North Falkland Basin and 136 miles to the north of the archipelago, has pushed up the estimated recoverable oil from 791 million barrels to 917 million barrels, equivalent to double the annual output of the entire North Sea.
Rockhopper Exploration, which is the company leading the project, announced plans to extract 532 million barrels initially, reports the Telegraph, up from a previous estimate of 312 million, with most of the remainder potentially recoverable under future plans.
Despite Labour’s ban on new oil and gas licences after coming to power, the Falkland Islands government has approved production in a move which illustrates the self-governing territory’s autonomy over its natural resources.
Responding to the major discovery, MP Mark Francois said it is “absolutely fantastic” and “would be a great resource”.
He jokingly added: “Provided Ed Miliband can get over it and doesn’t try and impose any sort of restrictions on the Falkland Islands government.”
Speaking on Jacob Rees-Mogg’s nightly GB News show, Mr Francois argued: “We spend a lot of money, quite rightly, defending the Falkland Islands, it would be great if we could use some of this oil wealth to relieve the pressure on the defence budget so that the Falklands pay more towards their own defence.”
“There are lots and lots of potential advantages in this, and I cannot see any downsides. We should drill baby, drill around the Falklands.
“China is responsible for almost a third of total global emissions today. By the way, they’re still opening one coal fired power station a month.
“The UK is responsible for approximately 1%, but that doesn’t mean because we’re only responsible for 1% we shouldn’t make an effort, but it’s a global problem.
“And so you’ve got to get the major emitters like China and India and the US and Brazil to do something more muscular about it.
“Even if we all went back to living in caves tomorrow, and I think that’s what some people would like, it wouldn’t scratch the damage that China is doing day in, day out.
“So we just have to have a proportionate way of dealing with this and allowing the Falklands to use oil – we’re an island, we’ve used oil for decades. That doesn’t mean that the planet is finished, we’ve just got to be realistic about it.
“In the meantime, if people want to save the planet they want to go and protest outside the Chinese Embassy.”
The discovery has sparked concerns that it will reignite geopolitical tensions over the islands between Britain and Argentina.
The South American rival has previously condemned oil exploration in the area as illegal and sought to rally international support against it.
