Profiting from the Panic – how to use a squeeze in the oil flow to financial advantage
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Oct 4, 2021
Petrol Panic grips the nation. A second week of fuel shortages on the forecourts threatens to hobble the economy, or at least erode support for the Tories in their heartlands and overshadow the Conservative Party Conference. Will queues at the petrol pumps in Manchester crowd the prime minister’s show? The Shell stations in Bolton were...
Subsidising spills – British public pays BP $300 million to drill and spill
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Oct 7, 2016
BP came under criticism this week when it caused a 95 tonne oil leak from its Clair Field into the North Sea. The company decided not to clear up the spill, and wait for the oil to wash further out to sea. The new spill comes as BP no longer pays net taxes to the...
6 reasons why #Budget2016 really really shouldn’t subsidise North Sea oil even more
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Mar 15, 2016
Osborne is announcing his #Budget2016 on Weds, and there’s lots of pressure from the oil barons for more subsidies and tax cuts. Their income has been hit by the falling oil price, and in all those years of bonanza profits they never thought to save for this rainy day (even though it was predictable given the mostly cyclical...
The battle of definitions: ‘no subsidies for the oil industry’
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May 13, 2013
The oil and gas industry enjoys no subsidy from government, nor are we asking for any. – said last week by Oil&Gas UK CEO Malcolm Webb at the Oil Politics conference at Aberdeen University (I should mention that there were several more substantial conversations at this conference that I will take a little time to write...
Tax breaks ‘crucial’ for Arctic oil
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Oct 24, 2011
On Friday 14th October, Texas governor and US presidential candidate Rick Perry unveiled his ‘jobs and energy’ policy which “resembles a wish list for the oil and gas industry” according to the New York Times. The plan, available online, involves scaling down the “job-killing” Environmental Protection Agency and opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge...
Tax dodging corporations keep Nigerians in poverty
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Oct 17, 2011
New research from ActionAid has exposed the multinationals dodging taxes in Nigeria. Shell is considered to be among one of the biggest offenders. As Tunde Aremu of ActionAid reports: Shell, with its massive interests in the Niger Delta, has 18 subsidiary companies located in Nigeria, but 455 in tax havens around the world. BP has...
The other offshore tax regime
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Apr 6, 2011
The lobby machine kicked into action following the announcement by George Osbourne of plans to raise £10 billion over the next 5 years from the oil industry. Ex-PLATFORMer Greg Muttitt, author of the forthcoming book Fuel on the Fire: Oil and Politics in Occupied Iraq explains in this guest blog why the outraged claims of the oil...
Upstream fossil fuel tax “politically feasible” in England
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Aug 3, 2010
A new report produced by conservative thinktank Policy Exchange – described as David Cameron’s “favourite”, promotesupstream carbon taxes as more effective than market-based cap & trade in reducing emissions. The report “Greener, Cheaper”, by Oxford based academic Dieter Helm, proposes an upstream fuel tax “levied on coal, gas and oil weighted according to their carbon content. Such a tax has...
