The U.K.'s new Conservative government is offering as many as 100 new oil and gas exploration licenses covering nearly 900 areas in the North Sea. The move follows the government ending its moratorium of shale gas extraction imposed three years ago.

In offering the exploration licenses on Oct. 7, the U.K.'s North Sea Transition Authority identified four priority cluster areas close to existing infrastructure for rapid development. It takes on average roughly five years to commercialize new offshore gas finds, according to the agency.

The proposed exploration defies statements by the International Energy Agency and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said that "new oil and gas development and exploration must end immediately as it is incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C," according to U.S.-based Global Energy Monitor.

Launching the North Sea drive, the U.K. government's business and energy secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg blamed “Putin’s illegal invasion of Ukraine." It was "more important than ever that we make the most of sovereign energy resources, strengthening our energy security now and into the future," he added.

For similar reasons, Rees-Mogg last month controversially ended his government's fracking moratorium that had been introduced after field trials caused small local earth tremors. Three test wells have been hydraulically fractured in the U.K., against intense opposition from environmental groups.

The U.K.'s main fracking firm, Cuadrilla Resources Ltd., welcomed the end of the moratorium. The Australian-owned company has one production site at Elswick, Lancashire, which was fractured in 1993. 

Cuadrilla started fracturing at its other active site, also in Lancashire, in 2017. Work stopped after ground tremors were recorded in August 2019. In comments to reporters, Rees-Mogg said he would be "delighted" to have the garden of his 17th-century country mansion fracked.