UKCS backers take big EPL hit

The basin’s champions over a challenging period may lose most from timing of the so-called windfall tax

One particular characteristic of the 25pc Energy Profits Levy (EPL) surcharge introduced in May by the UK government was a barrier to offsetting previous investment against income now subject to the tax. The logic was along similar lines to that driving the EPL’s introduction—the government did not want to read headlines about Shell or BP paying negligible UK tax bills while their corporate profits and the UK electorate’s gas and mobility fuel costs soared.    But what of the smaller independents who invested in UK continental shelf (UKCS) projects, often through hostile investment climates, in the second half of the last decade and—while not in the media spotlight compared with the majors—f