20% Stake Ties Rosebank Oil Field to Israel Sanctions Fight

A 20% ownership stake is at the center of a dispute over whether Britain's largest untapped oil field can proceed without violating the government's own sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements, according to BBC News.

The stake belongs to Ithaca Energy, a London Stock Exchange-listed, FTSE 100 company controlled by Israel's Delek Group. Ithaca holds 20% of Rosebank, the oil field off Shetland that the UK government must soon decide whether to approve. Delek Group was included last year in a United Nations database of firms alleged to provide services or utilities supporting settlements in occupied Palestinian territory, the BBC reported.

What is the 20% stake connection to Delek Group?

Ithaca Energy's position as a Rosebank stakeholder runs through its parent, Delek Group, which the UN database flagged in connection with settlement activity. A Delek Group spokesman told the Daily Telegraph, as cited by the BBC, that the company "has been wrongly included in the UN database" and that "together with our legal advisers, we intend to formally challenge this and request the immediate removal of our name from the UN database." The spokesman separately told the Telegraph that Delek "no longer had any involvement in Israeli settlements."

Why do the West Bank sanctions matter for this decision?

Last month, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced measures targeting companies and individuals that provide infrastructure or other services supporting settlement expansion in the occupied West Bank, along with a ban on imports of goods from the settlements, according to the BBC. That announcement came roughly three weeks before campaigners sent their letters, and it has become the legal and political fulcrum of the Rosebank debate: if Delek Group's past settlement ties bring it within reach of the new sanctions regime, campaigners argue, a British-approved oil project tied to the company could sit awkwardly alongside the government's own policy.

What have campaigners and the Green Party said?

Campaigners from Stop Rosebank and Greenpeace, working with the group Uplift, sent a letter to Prime Minister Andy Burnham and to Miliband asking the government to "confirm, unequivocally, whether Delek will be caught by the new planned measures." The letter, seen by BBC News, continued: "If it is not, please explain how that is consistent with the government's stated intent to sanction those who finance or facilitate illegal settlements." Uplift's 2023 legal challenge against Rosebank is what produced the ongoing delay in the project's approval, the BBC noted.

Green Party leader Zack Polanski wrote separately to Miliband asking what steps the government would take to ensure revenue from UK oil and gas production does not finance illegal settlements. "Rosebank is a test of whether Labour's proposed sanctions regime is fit for purpose," Polanski said. "Companies blacklisted by the UN for operating in the illegal settlements should not be financed by oil and gas revenues from the North Sea."

How have Ithaca Energy and Delek Group responded?

Ithaca Energy did not directly address the sanctions question in its statement to the BBC, instead emphasizing its UK credentials. A company spokesperson said: "Ithaca Energy is a London Stock Exchange listed company which is a member of the FTSE 100, and which is governed by the highest standards of corporate governance." The spokesperson added that Ithaca "is one of the biggest investors in the North Sea and Scotland, is a responsible employer and is a major contributor to both the UK Treasury through tax payments and to the UK's energy security."

Delek Group's position, relayed through the Telegraph, is that its inclusion in the UN database was an error it intends to contest formally, rather than an acknowledgment of ongoing settlement ties.

By the numbers

• 20% — Ithaca Energy's stake in the Rosebank oil field, held under parent company Delek Group.
• 2023 — the year Uplift's legal challenge produced the delay still affecting Rosebank's approval decision.

What happens next for the Rosebank decision?

The UK government has yet to issue a formal decision on Rosebank, and neither Burnham's office nor Miliband's has publicly answered the campaigners' core question of whether Delek Group falls under the new sanctions measures. Until that clarification comes, the fight over Rosebank will likely continue to double as a proxy fight over how seriously the UK enforces its own settlement sanctions.

What to watch

• Whether Burnham or Miliband responds directly to Uplift's request to clarify Delek Group's sanctions status.
• The outcome of Delek Group's stated challenge to its UN database listing.
• Timing of the government's final decision on Rosebank and the related Jackdaw field.
• Whether Polanski or other MPs raise the issue in Parliament ahead of a Rosebank ruling.