UK finance minister Rishi Sunak performs a U-turn on an oil and gas windfall tax
UK hits producers with windfall tax
The Johnson government U-turns again, while still calling for more investment
UK finance minister Rishi Sunak’s commitment that he would hit the country’s upstream sector with an additional tax burden only if they failed to reinvest profits in new projects lasted a whole nine days. On Thursday, he announced what he calls a “targeted energy profits levy”—or a windfall tax by any other name. “The new levy will be charged on the profits of oil and gas companies at a rate of 25pc,” says Sunak. “It will be temporary, and when oil and gas prices return to historically more normal levels, the levy will be phased out, with a sunset clause written into the legislation.” The proposed date on the sunset clause, at which point the new levy will automatically expire, is the end of
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The April 2026 issue of Petroleum Economist is out now!
