NEW licences have been granted for gas extraction from the North Sea.

The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) on Friday announced it had issued 31 new licences as part of the latest phase of the current licencing round.

It takes the total number of offers to 82 in the current round, which have been made to 50 firms.

Most are early-phase licences for companies to do surveys and gather data. Six are Phase C licences which can proceed more quickly to drilling.

Industry body Offshore Energies UK said most had been granted for gas extraction from the southern North Sea and those had the potential to “come on stream to power and heat the UK’s businesses and homes within the next five years”.

In a statement, the body said the licences would make Britain less reliant on imported gas, which it said was worse for the environment.

But environmental campaigners have reacted with fury. 

Uplift, a group campaigning for the end of oil and gas use, said the new licences were “likely to result in very little oil and gas reaching the UK”.

Tessa Khan, an environmental lawyer and executive director of the group, added: “This isn’t an energy strategy, it’s a pipedream.

“Add to this the possibility that these oil and gas companies might use wind energy to power rigs, diverting it from powering homes and reducing bills, and we’d be moving backwards in terms of energy security.

“Despite all the warnings that opening new oil and gas fields will push us past safe climate limits, Rishi Sunak has chosen to push new drilling as part of his pitch to voters.

“These election results suggest people aren’t buying it. Unlike more renewables and insulating homes, it will do nothing to lower energy bills, it just boosts the profits of oil and gas companies.”

READ MORE: Call for 'New Deal for the North Sea' as campaigners brand UK plans a 'sham'

The licences offered have the potential to add an estimated 600 million barrels of oil equivalent up to 2060, according to Offshore Energies UK.

David Whitehouse, the organisation's chief executive, said: “New oil and gas licences benefit every sector in the UK.

“They will help to bring secure supplies of homegrown gas into our grid, reducing our reliance on more carbon intensive imports from overseas.

“These licences will help to protect jobs and power and heat the nation’s firms and homes as we build the next generation of low carbon infrastructure here in the UK.”

Kenny MacAskill, the deputy leader of the Alba Party, said: "The left hand needs to know what the right hand is doing. We need to continue to use our North Sea resource.

"Equally we need to begin the transition to the offshore renewable bounty we've been blessed with. At the moment the UK Government is cutting across both.

"Strategic planning is required for Scotland to both benefit and transition.

"At the moment they’re undermining both and Scotland isn't benefitting in jobs, business or affordable energy. Energy rich yet fuel poor; it's simply perverse."

Greens MSP Mark Ruskell said: “Today the UK Government lost a High Court case for failing to tackle the climate crisis.

"You might think this would give some pause for reflection about the environmental catastrophe unfolding around us, and the world we’re going to leave behind for our children and grandchildren.

“The science is clear: there must be no new oil and gas developments. To proudly ignore this science as the Tories and unfortunately Labour do should be as incomprehensible to us today as it will be to future generations.”