Or, of course, malicious:
Tessa Khan, executive director of campaign group Uplift, criticised the Government for passing on decommissioning costs to the taxpayer.
She said: “The oil giant, which made over £22bn in profit last year, isn’t even on the hook for the whole clean-up operation. Thanks to tax breaks for oil and gas companies, UK taxpayers would have to cough up a large proportion of the decommissioning costs, even when the industry is rolling in profits.”
Lying scum.
As The Telegraph actually explains (which is good, so I don’t have to):
If upheld, the decision will be costly for both Shell and the Treasury, as taxpayers’ money is used to fund the cost of decommissioning North Sea platforms.
Shell’s tax report shows that the company has already claimed £600m in UK rebates since 2018, including £43m last year.
However, this compares to the £20bn of tax revenues generated by the Brent oil field since 1976.
The Treasury treats the cost of decommissioning offshore assets as a genuine business expense which can be offset against profits made in previous years.
The tax on those pfotis in former years has already been paid. So, we’ve now an expense which is allied to those former years’ profits and taxes paid – thus we get a tax credit now.
Everything environmrmtalists say is a lie.
It was sealed finally for me in 1999 with that Shell oil platform affair.
They could save on decommissioning costs by abandoning the requirement to cut off the platforms no higher than 1 metre above seabed. Chop them at say 20 metres below sea level and no trawlers would go near and you create a marine nature reserve.
As the tax payer is picking up most of the commissioning, interconnection costs, balancing costs and no doubt decommission costs and probably some of the Opex the probably shouldn’t be drawing too much attention to themselves.
Philip,
The current requirements offer a derogation if the jacket is above a certain weight (10k tons). Though the powers that be seem to be increasingly keen not to grant the derogation.
Abandoning a jacket to create a marine environment is called “reefing”. As we’re signed up to OSPAR the starting presumption is that everything is returned to a clean seabed. Reefing is a no go in the North Sea.
No, she’s not ignorant. These people know why what is happening is happening. They just don’t care about fairness, or the rule of law. They just care about getting their hands on power and whatever stick can be used to do that will be used, regardless of any principles whatsoever.
Also can we stop with this “taxpayer picking up the bill” shite. The taxman not being allowed to be as rapacious as he would be otherwise is NOT the same as the taxpayer giving the oil companies some of the money he has rapaciously grabbed from others.