Unite warns the Government it cannot afford to lose the Rough gas facility, which holds around half of Britain’s storage capacity, as Centrica demands financial guarantees for a £2bn expansion and ministers insist the decision is commercial.
Britain’s energy security is heading for a high-stakes confrontation, with Labour facing calls to intervene — and even take a major gas storage facility into public ownership — as the threat of closure collides with rising geopolitical risks and dwindling reserves.
Unite the Union has demanded that ministers act to secure Rough’s future, a depleted gas field converted for storage 18 miles off the Yorkshire coast. The site accounts for around half of the UK’s gas storage capacity, making its future a strategic question for a country already exposed to volatile international energy markets.
The warning comes as operator Centrica says it will not seek to continue production beyond April 2027 without a viable route forward. The company has a £2bn redevelopment plan ready to expand the facility but wants the Government to introduce a “cap and floor” pricing mechanism: a guarantee of minimum earnings in exchange for limits on potential returns.
The dispute has exposed a fundamental divide over who should pay to protect Britain’s energy resilience. Centrica argues that Rough is too important to be dismissed as a routine commercial decision. Ministers, meanwhile, have said they are open to discussions but maintain that expansion is ultimately a matter for the company.
Unite is demanding a more decisive response.
“The general public will not forgive the government or Centrica if this facility is allowed to close and our energy supply becomes even more risky in an increasingly uncertain world,” said Sharon Graham, the union’s general secretary.
The union says Rough supports 100 direct jobs and another 350 in its supply chain. It has called on ministers to consider “all options” to keep the site operating, explicitly including nationalisation if negotiations fail.
“If that is not possible then Unite will push for the government to keep the site open at all costs including the option of public ownership,” said Simon Coop, Unite’s national officer for energy.
The stakes extend beyond employment. Unite claims the facility is currently empty and that Britain has only 12 days of gas supply in storage — a level it describes as the lowest in recent history. The figures underline the country’s limited buffer against sudden disruptions, although storage is only one component of Britain’s overall gas supply.
Unlike many European countries, Britain has historically relied less heavily on stored gas, partly because North Sea production continues to meet more than a third of domestic demand. But domestic output does not insulate the country from international price shocks or competition for imported supplies.
That vulnerability is becoming more acute as winter approaches. Gas storage levels across Europe are also low, while the war involving Iran has intensified competition for supplies. Analysts have warned that the consequences could include a year of elevated energy prices even if the conflict in the Middle East subsides.
Rough’s future has therefore become a test of how far the Government is prepared to go to protect energy infrastructure that may be commercially unattractive without state support.
Centrica says a redeveloped facility would strengthen security of supply, reduce Britain’s exposure to price volatility and support jobs. Chief executive Chris O’Shea has argued that the site is already approaching the limit of what it can deliver without further investment.
“The future of Rough is too important to the UK to be dismissed as simply a ‘commercial decision’,” he has said.
Ministers have so far resisted that argument. Earlier this week, defence minister Luke Pollard told BBC Radio 4 that Rough was “not something that the Government is choosing to invest in”.
“This is a very clear commercial decision for the company,” he said, arguing that the Government’s strategy was to reduce dependence on fossil fuels through greater investment in renewable energy.
That response points to the tension at the heart of Britain’s energy transition. Ministers want to reduce exposure to fossil fuels over time, but the country will continue to need reliable supplies while that transition is under way. Renewable investment does not, by itself, resolve the immediate question of how much gas Britain can store and how quickly it can access it when demand surges or imports become more expensive.
Unite also argues that Rough could have a role beyond natural gas. The facility could potentially be adapted to store hydrogen, offering a future use for infrastructure that might otherwise become stranded as the energy system changes.
The Government must now weigh the cost of supporting a major storage project against the potential consequences of allowing it to close. A cap-and-floor mechanism could give Centrica the certainty it says it needs, but it would also mean the state taking on some financial risk. Public ownership would go further, putting the asset directly under government control while leaving taxpayers exposed to the cost of operating and upgrading it.
Neither option is cost-free. But allowing the dispute to drift carries risks of its own, particularly if Britain enters another period of high prices with limited storage capacity and little spare room to absorb a supply shock.
For Labour, the choice is becoming harder to frame as a narrow commercial matter. Rough sits at the intersection of jobs, energy bills, national resilience and the long-term transition away from fossil fuels. The question is not simply whether the project can make money for Centrica, but whether the country is willing to pay to preserve infrastructure it may need.
With the company’s deadline approaching and winter pressures building, Unite’s message to ministers is blunt: Britain cannot afford to treat energy security as somebody else’s responsibility.
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