The head of the UK's North Sea oil and gas industry has called on Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to back a larger stream of new upstream developments, The Scotsman has reported.

The appeal, carried in the paper under the headline North Sea chief calls on Burnham to open 'bigger pipeline' of oil and gas projects, lands as basin operators press for wider political cover for new drilling on the UK Continental Shelf. UK production has been on a long, structural decline for more than a decade, and the lobby is now reaching beyond Westminster to regional heavyweights who shape the national conversation.

Burnham leads one of England's largest city-regions and has been a frequent, sharp voice on energy, housing and the cost of living. Greater Manchester's combined authority has run retrofit and low-carbon programmes, but the Mayor has not, in recent memory, lined up in outright opposition to continued domestic production. That positioning makes him a useful audience for the industry pitch: a regional figure whose backing would carry less political risk than a Westminster front-bencher asked to sign a permit.

What does the North Sea want?

The industry's central ask has been steady for years: a more predictable cadence of final investment decisions on the UKCS. Recent flagship projects — Equinor's Rosebank, Shell's Jackdaw — have moved at very different speeds through the regulator, the courts and the Treasury, with fiscal terms, environmental review and decommissioning security all weighing on FID timing. Operators say they need a visible queue of sanctioned work to keep the supply chain intact in Aberdeen, Teesside and the Humber, where drilling, subsea installation and platform modification contracts anchor thousands of roles.

Takeaway: the basin wants more FIDs, faster, and clearer political cover for the permits behind them.

That supply chain has thinned over the past decade as the basin matured and rigs pulled to higher-margin work in West Africa, the Gulf of Mexico and Guyana. Re-mobilising capacity after another quiet stretch gets harder with every year that passes without a project slate.

Why does this matter for Burnham?

Greater Manchester does not host a North Sea platform, but its industrial base touches the basin through engineering firms, the chemicals complex at Runcorn and Mersey-side terminals. The Mayor's cooperation, even rhetorical, helps shape how the licensing debate plays across the north of England, where the energy transition intersects directly with skilled industrial jobs.

Takeaway: his blessing would move the political weather more than any single permit.

A response from the Mayor's office, if one comes, will be the next data point.

Watch: the name of the industry chief behind the appeal, any specific projects cited in his pitch, and the Mayor's reply.