Detailed article on Alaska North Slope offshore development, with considerable griping about ex-Governor Sarah Palin's confiscatory tax regime...
Big money going offshore
Kay Cashman, Petroleum News, Week of August 16, 2009
With oil and gas employment in Alaska at an all-time high for the fourth year in a row, crude prices bumping $70 per barrel, four northern Alaska oil fields under development, and the world’s majors lined up to invest billions more offshore the North Slope, the future of Alaska’s oil industry looks rosy, with or without a natural gas pipeline.
Except that BP says it might not have developed one of those four fields, its Liberty discovery, if the Beaufort Sea accumulation was under state, not federal, waters and therefore subject to Alaska’s new production tax, Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share, commonly known as ACES.
The feds levy a flat 12 percent production tax on oil, whereas under Alaska’s tax rules, “you’re denied the upside because the tax rate gets up around 80 percent,” Doug Suttles said in 2008, while he was president of BP in Alaska.
full story: petroleumnews.com |
