Britain is taxing the North Sea ‘to death’ warns Jim Ratcliffe
The government’s windfall tax is pushing the North Sea ‘to death’, warns Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe
The North Sea oil and gas industry is under threat from the government’s windfall tax, warned one of Britain’s richest men.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, founder of the chemical group Ineos, said taxes were “so high that profits no longer fund future investment”.
He accused the government of playing “primitive politics” when it introduced the levy last year.
Busy: Sir Jim Ratcliffe (pictured), whose firm Ineos owns the 1940s oil pipeline, said taxes are now ‘so high that profits no longer fund future investment’
Rishi Sunak imposed an additional 25 percent tax on industry profits when he was chancellor, when energy prices soared after the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
This was increased to 35 percent by his successor Jeremy Hunt. But Ratcliffe said the levy, which imposes an effective tax rate of 75 percent on North Sea profits to help fund government support schemes for household fuel bills, jeopardized energy security.
“What the country needs is energy security, which means we need to boost the development of our strategic energy reserves in the North Sea,” he told the Financial Times.
No thought had been given to the long-term consequences of this “tax to death” action, he said.