Exclusive: Blunder at Rosebank, UK’s biggest undeveloped oilfield, comes as government considers granting licence

Production at Britain’s biggest undeveloped oil and gasfield could be delayed for months after equipment from a rig was accidentally dropped in the North Sea, the Guardian can reveal.

Andy Burnham’s new government is under pressure from the fossil fuel industry to allow oil to be retrieved from the Rosebank site despite opposition from climate campaigners and some Labour MPs.

One task awaiting new energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh is devising a plan to avoid a crisis by the end of the decade

Welcome to the energy secretary job, Miatta Fahnbulleh. You have a politically tricky decision to make on whether to approve production at the Jackdaw gasfield and the Rosebank oilfield. But here’s another one that can’t wait much longer: what is the broader plan to ensure Britain avoids a gas supply crisis in 2030?

By way of reminder, one of the more alarming reports published by the energy department under Ed Miliband was the one that warned of “an emerging risk” to gas supplies at the turn of the decade if an important piece of kit – an import terminal, say, or the critical 725-mile Langeled pipeline from Norway – were to be out of the action during a severe cold snap.