MINISTERS have been urged to nationalise North Sea oil and gas production to prevent a massive taxpayer bailout when reserves run out in 14 years time.

Unite urged ministers to “step up” today after experts warned it would “be reckless in the extreme” not to act to avoid a catastrophic cliff-edge collapse of the industry.

A report by the Common Wealth think tank warned that the government has about 14 years to act before reserves run out at current production levels.

Failing to act would mean private companies abruptly abandon the basin and leave front-line communities and the state facing huge social and economic consequences, with the cost of decommissioning existing rigs estimated at £10.8 billion alone.

Common Wealth director Mathew Lawrence said: “This risks a disorderly, insecure, and unfair energy transition, dependent on the whims of investors.

“A safer, more practical, and more cost-effective route would be to ensure public co-ordination and a planned transition were at the heart of plans for the North Sea.

“Our new analysis underscores an often-ignored point in the debate: while oil and gas companies are making record profits, the public are on the hook for billions of pounds of decommissioning costs.”

Melanie Brusseler from Common Wealth added: “The question is how long we put off the inevitable, and what we sacrifice, the longer we cede control to the profit motive — stability, justice, and opportunities to build public wealth.”

The risk of a cliff-edge end to the sector is increasing as big fossil fuel corporations are increasingly replaced by more opaque private equity players as stocks dwindle, the report added.

The privately owned, for-profit fossil fuel industry is incapable of safely and fairly winding down oil and gas extraction in the North Sea,” it says.

“This should not come as a surprise. Oil and gas companies own and exploit their resources in pursuit of one overriding goal: the maximisation of profit.

“Given this, they are fundamentally ill-equipped to deliver what is required to keep the planet liveable: an orderly phaseout of a still hugely profitable industry as part of a just transition for workers, frontline communities and the shift to a secure and clean energy system.

“As such, it would be reckless in the extreme to trust the fair and orderly managed wind down of the sector to a combination of market co-ordination and a for-profit privately owned corporation.”

The report called for the government to take equity stakes in existing projects based either on the amount companies have invested or on the market value of shares.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “As this report makes clear, there must be a just transition for oil and gas workers. They cannot be allowed to become this generation’s coal miners. 

“Letting North Sea energy companies extract huge riches while shedding jobs and leaving the taxpayer to clean up the mess is not an option. The government needs to step up.” 

The government has said it will not issue any new drilling licences in the North Sea and has increased the windfall tax on oil and gas profits.

TUC Congress narrowly backed a motion opposing the ban last September, as delegates said a fully funded workers’ plan guaranteeing commensurate jobs for all North Sea workers must be agreed first.

The union federation was to call for an industrial strategy policy “that maximises our domestic energy strengths for national security, with all assets and options part of the solution: nuclear, renewables and oil and gas production.”

A spokesperson for the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero declined to comment on the idea of state ownership, but said: “We are committed to investing in the clean energy industry through Great British Energy and our national wealth fund.

“We need to replace our dependency on unstable fossil fuel markets with clean, homegrown power controlled in Britain — which is the best way to protect bill payers and boost our energy independence.”