This interdisciplinary thesis combines economics and law disciplines in examining the current fiscal regime applicable to upstream petroleum activities in the UK with an overarching objective of developing a policy framework for a new fiscal regime that is not only stable enough to avoid future alterations but also sufficiently fair to balance the unaligned imperatives of the investors and the government. Since the initial days of hydrocarbon exploitation in the UK Continental Shelf the fiscal regime was subject to numerous changes in reaction to the dynamics of the time. Most of these changes were brought about in order to incentivise the investors to explore for and get petroleum while attempting to ensure an appropriate share, or fair return, were accruing to the UK economy. The frequency of these changes however increased fiscal instability, making investment into the UK's upstream sector a riskier proposition. In order to develop a stable regime that can also ensure a fair return, therefore, this thesis begins with a brief overview of the fiscal instability and the government's most recent attempt at ensuring an appropriate share. This most recent attempt, the Treasury's Fiscal Review, is a consequence of the review of the entire upstream industry in the UK by Sir Ian Wood. The resultant report of the review, the Wood Report, provides the government's rationale for reform. Using the government position as a guidance, the work then analyses the conditions under which investors are incentivised and ascertains what exactly is meant by an appropriate share, or fair return, for the state. This analysis is carried out using the relevant investment and fiscal theories which, in turn, yields a set of criteria to evaluate the fiscal instruments. Once the criteria are established they are utilised against the fiscal regime that was in place prior to the government's most recent attempt at receiving a fair return. This is not only to assess the extent of the need for reforming the then existing regime but also to understand what was being reformed. The criteria are then employed subsequently in assessing the same for the most recent reforms of the government.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:731604 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Üşenmez, Emre |
| Publisher | University of Aberdeen |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://digitool.abdn.ac.uk:80/webclient/DeliveryManager?pid=233933 |
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