Confidence is building that the UK Government will agree a solution to long-running concerns over oil and gas infrastructure decommissioning costs, an industry conference heard yesterday.
Oil and Gas UK chief executive Malcolm Webb said he believed industry talks with the Treasury had found a way to solve concerns the government might not keep to a promise to pay a substantial amount of the cost of decommissioning nearly 500 North Sea platforms and other infrastructure.
Speaking at the Southern North Sea conference in Norwich organised by the East of England Energy Group, he said: “I believe we’ve found a way to relieve the uncertainty around decommissioning. I think it will stimulate the whole market in transfer of mature assets. The proposal is a contract between oil companies and government.
“What it says is, when it comes to decommissioning a field, if the tax regime has not changed that’s fine. If it’s been altered to take available relief away, the government agrees to pay the company damages it has suffered because of loss of those reliefs.”
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