Where Britain's Gas Comes From: UK Fields, Norway and Imports

Britain's gas arrives from four places: fields on the UK Continental Shelf, pipelines from Norway, tankers carrying liquefied natural gas, and two interconnector pipelines from Belgium and the Netherlands. On a five-year average, the UK Continental Shelf provides 43 per cent of gross annual gas supply, the Norwegian Continental Shelf 35 per cent, LNG shipments 21 per cent and continental interconnectors about 1 per cent¹. In demand terms, 37 per cent of the gas the UK used in 2024 was domestically produced². Both framings point to the same conclusion: roughly half the gas burned in Britain is home-produced, and roughly half is imported³.

That balance is not static. The UK was a net exporter until 2004; since then the majority of supply has come from imports⁴. In 2000 the country sourced its gas almost entirely from the North Sea⁵. Domestic offshore gas production is now projected to keep falling at 12 per cent a year¹, and one independent projection has North Sea gas production down 75 per cent by 2035, at which point almost 85 per cent of UK gas demand would be met by net imports⁶.

Gas matters to households well beyond the boiler. It made up 35 per cent of total UK energy demand in 2024¹, with total demand of 687 TWh, of which 26 per cent went to electricity generation and 19 per cent to industry². Gas is the single greatest source of UK electricity at 36 per cent⁷, so the price of imported gas reaches even all-electric homes.

Domestic production: the North Sea's shrinking share

UK Continental Shelf gas remains the single largest contributor, at 43 per cent of gross annual supply on a five-year average¹. Measured against demand rather than gross supply, domestic production covered 37 per cent in 2024², and an earlier assessment for 2018 put it at 33 per cent of demand⁸. The spread between these numbers reflects different denominators and different years rather than a factual dispute: gross supply counts everything entering the system, including volumes that are re-exported or stored.

The direction of travel is not in doubt. Production of crude oil and natural gas liquids fell to 30.4 million tonnes in 2024, and official projections show offshore gas production continuing to decline at 12 per cent a year¹. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit has modelled North Sea gas production falling 75 per cent by 2035⁶. That is a depletion story, not a policy one: fields that have been producing since the 1960s and 1970s hold less each year.

For households this matters in one specific way. Domestic gas is sold at the international price, so producing more at home does not, of itself, lower a bill. What domestic production does change is exposure to the physical risks of long supply chains: cargo diversions, pipeline outages and shipping disruption. A field 200 kilometres offshore is less vulnerable to those than a tanker crossing the Gulf. The Institution of Gas Engineers and Managers has argued that home-grown gas, natural gas, biomethane and hydrogen together, retains a strategic role in UK energy security through the transition⁹.

Norway: the UK's largest import source

Norway is the UK's largest single external supplier of gas, at 35 per cent of gross annual supply on a five-year average¹. Import capacity from Norway stands at roughly 135 million cubic metres a day¹. Independent estimates put Norway at approximately 60 per cent of UK natural gas imports¹⁰, with other assessments placing Norwegian pipeline gas at around a third of UK consumption¹¹ and 39 per cent of demand in 2018⁸. The variation comes from whether the figure is expressed as a share of imports or a share of total supply.

Norwegian gas arrives by pipeline, which gives it two characteristics that LNG lacks. It is contracted on long-term terms and it is physically fixed: the gas cannot easily be diverted to a higher-paying market mid-voyage. Government statements have described the UK as benefiting from diverse and secure sources of gas from the North Sea and reliable import partners like Norway¹. Norway is also the source of around half of UK crude oil imports, and around 60 per cent of the UK's energy in total comes from abroad, including Norway, Qatar, Sweden and the Netherlands¹⁰.

The dependence is real but narrow. It is a dependence on one neighbouring state with which the UK shares a continental shelf, rather than on a distant supplier reached through contested waters. The residual risk is concentration: a single large pipeline system carrying a third of national gas supply is a single point of failure, which is part of why LNG capacity and storage exist alongside it. Further detail on the physical routes sits with gas pipelines and interconnectors.

LNG tankers: Qatar, the United States and Algeria

Liquefied natural gas supplies 21 per cent of gross annual gas supply on a five-year average, with GB import capacity of 150 million cubic metres a day, slightly more than the Norwegian pipeline capacity¹. A separate independent estimate puts LNG at around 15 per cent of the UK's gas at present³.

Qatar dominated this route for most of its history, accounting for 70 to 97 per cent of LNG volumes imported to the UK since 2005, and 87 per cent of LNG imports in 2011¹². That concentration has since loosened. By 2026 the reported pattern was that considerably more gas was arriving from the United States and much less from Qatar than in 2022¹³. That shift proved material in March 2026, when Qatar suspended LNG production and exports¹⁴.

LNG is also the route through which the UK's small Russian exposure historically ran. Of six LNG shipments received in a period of early 2018, three were from Russia⁸. Public opinion has leaned towards diversification: an Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit poll found seven in ten UK adults backed more gas from other countries such as Algeria, Qatar or the US¹⁵. The terminal infrastructure behind this trade is covered in LNG imports and UK terminals.

Russian gas: a small and shrinking exposure

Russia has never been a significant direct supplier of gas to the UK. Five countries have long accounted for the vast majority of imports: Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, Qatar and Algeria⁸. Russian LNG contributed 0.4 percentage points of UK supplies in the 2018 period⁸. At the start of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit put UK imports from Russia at 5 to 6 per cent of gas imports, equal to 3 to 4 per cent of UK consumption¹⁶.

The two figures are not in conflict: one counts a share of the smaller import total in a particular year, the other a share of all supplies including LNG only. Either way, the UK's exposure to Russian gas was never comparable to that of several continental European states. What the UK was exposed to, and remains exposed to, is the price effect. Gas trades on an international market, so a supply shock anywhere raises the price everywhere, regardless of whose molecules arrive at Bacton or Milford Haven. This is the mechanism explored in how global events move UK energy prices.

How gas reaches your home

The gas grid is a network of pipelines across Great Britain², with Northern Ireland served by a separate and much younger network. Gas comes ashore at coastal terminals, moves through the high-pressure national transmission system, and is then stepped down into the regional distribution networks that run under streets to meters.

Two interconnector pipelines under the English Channel link Britain to Belgium and the Netherlands¹⁷. They account for only about 1 per cent of gross annual supply on a five-year average, but play a key role in balancing supply and demand on cold winter days¹. Their value is flexibility rather than volume: they can flow in either direction, exporting in summer and importing during a cold snap.

Around 85 per cent of UK homes are connected to the gas grid¹⁸, a figure repeated across independent sources, with one guide putting it at 84 per cent of domestic properties¹⁹. In England specifically, 21.2 million households, 86 per cent, used a gas-fired main heating system in 2023-24²⁰. There are roughly 30 million homes in the UK, about 24.5 million of them heated by natural gas²¹. More than four million off-gas homes across England, Wales and Scotland rely instead on oil, LPG, solid fuel or electricity²³. Nearly every household has access to the electricity grid, though not all are connected to gas²⁴. Which network delivers to a given street is set out in gas distribution networks.

Biomethane: green gas already flowing into UK homes

Biomethane is produced by anaerobic digestion of organic material such as food waste, manure, sewage or crops, broken down by bacteria in sealed digester tanks without oxygen¹⁹. The gas is cleaned and upgraded, then injected into the distribution network. The spent digestate makes usable organic fertiliser, which lowers emissions further²⁶.

The decisive technical point for households is compatibility.

No boiler change, conversion or appliance modification is required. Because biomethane is blended into the general grid supply, no individual household receives it alone; it arrives as a small share of mixed mains gas.

Volumes are already meaningful. There is enough biomethane flowing through the network to heat up to one million homes²⁷, from 130 connected sites²⁷; a separate count in March 2025 put this at 128 sites with capacity to heat one million homes²⁶, and an earlier study found 124 connected sites with 29 more in the connections process²⁸. Connected capacity stood at 10.1 TWh, enough for over 840,000 homes, rising to 14.5 TWh and 1.2 million homes including sites in the pipeline²⁸. Framed against heating systems rather than homes, that is enough for 1.2 million gas-boiler homes or around 6 million homes on hybrid systems²⁹. Current production is 7 TWh⁹. In the last year covered, biomethane saved 1.2 million tonnes of carbon, equivalent to taking 923,000 cars off the road²⁶. Biomethane is described as carbon neutral²⁵, and with biogenic carbon capture at the production plant it can remove more carbon than it emits³⁰. Deployment is particularly advantageous in rural areas, where fewer properties are connected to the main gas network¹⁹.

How much of UK gas demand biomethane could cover

Analysis published in May 2025 found sufficient sustainable domestic feedstock to generate 50 TWh of biomethane by 2030, equal to 14 per cent of current UK gas demand, and up to 120 TWh by 2050, which equates to up to 90 per cent of overall demand in 2050 on a scenario of significantly lower gas demand by then²⁷. That is a tenfold or greater increase in production capacity, producing volumes equal to the heating demands of over 10 million homes and supporting up to 60,000 skilled jobs by 2030²⁷. The same analysis argues government has significantly underestimated the potential²⁷, against a current official production target of 30 TWh by 2050²⁸.

The constraint is not feedstock but mobilisation: only 2.5 per cent of the UK's available organic farm waste is currently used to make biomethane¹⁹. Baringa analysis suggests scaling UK biomethane could deliver £156bn to £218bn in cumulative energy system savings⁹, and the National Energy System Operator has positioned biomethane as a whole-system solution deployable now, with further growth to be modelled in its Future Energy Scenarios⁹. Support runs through the Green Gas Support Scheme, which funds generation of biomethane by anaerobic digestion for injection into the gas grid³¹.

Temper the arithmetic with two cautions. The 90 per cent figure depends entirely on demand falling steeply first, through insulation, heat pumps and electrification; it is not a claim that biomethane can replace today's 687 TWh of gas demand². And one network pathway has biomethane reaching the grid at scale only during the 2040s¹⁶. A fuller treatment sits at biomethane and green gas.

What import dependence means for a household

The UK is a net energy importer with a high dependence on gas and oil³², and has been strongly affected by the energy crisis because of its dependence on natural gas for heating, electricity generation and industry³³. Gas and oil account for 78 per cent of UK household energy costs, with 47 per cent of that gas and oil relying on imports³⁴. Scottish Government analysis expected the UK to be importing 67 per cent of its gas by 2025³⁵.

For a household, the practical consequence is that the gas bill and much of the electricity bill are both set by an international commodity price. About 30 per cent of UK electricity demand is met by fossil gas³⁶, so a home that has removed its boiler but stayed on the grid still holds an indirect exposure. The dependencies that remain, whatever a household does inside its own walls, are the international gas market, the gas and electricity networks, a licensed supplier, and, for gas, the physical routes described above.

What a household can shift is the size of that exposure. Reducing demand through fabric measures cuts the number of imported kilowatt hours needed at any price. Moving heat to electricity swaps a direct gas dependence for a partial one, shrinking as the grid decarbonises. Biomethane greens the molecules without changing the appliance, but it is delivered as a grid blend and gives no household any independent claim on supply. None of these removes the dependence; they change its shape and its scale. The wider picture is set out in UK energy supply and in energy security and household independence.