BP (BP+0.2%) and the U.K. government get a win over Greenpeace in Scotland's highest civil court in an attempt to void the company's license to drill a North Sea oilfield, Reuters reports.
The environmental group had argued BP's permit to drill the Vorlich site off Aberdeen did not consider the climate impacts of the emissions from the ultimate consumption of the oil, rather than just the smaller amount of emissions from the extraction process.
"It would not be practicable, in an assessment of the environmental effects of a project for the extraction of fossil fuels, for the decision maker to conduct a wide ranging examination into the effects, local or global, of the use of that fuel by the final consumer," the court rules.
The ruling means operations at the 20K bbl/day Vorlich field, which started producing late last year, will continue; Greenpeace says it plans to seek an appeal before the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.