Can the North Sea Still Save Europe?

In the 1980s and 1990s the North Sea emerged as a key non-OPEC oil producing province. Yet today overall production is declining, in both the British and Norwegian sectors and the big oil companies and investors are losing interest in what they now see as a mature province. But apparent maturity is not a bar to new prospects and new possibilities. This paper analyses not merely the still significant potential of the North Sea, but also the wider and increasingly attractive prospects offered by the opening up of the High North, the Barents Sea and part of the Arctic region – all areas of rapidly growing interest which are on Europe’s doorstep. Success will depend heavily on key questions such as the world oil price trend, technological advance and the structure of fiscal regimes for oil and gas extraction. But the opportunities are there and they could be to Europe’s great advantage.North Sea, High North, Fiscal Regime, Oil Price, Mature Oil Province

Do High Oil Prices Justify an Increase in Taxation in a Mature Oil Province? The Case of the UK Continental Shelf

In response to the structural shift in oil price coupled with greater import dependency, concerns about security of supply have once again emerged as a major policy issue. The UK, the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the European Union, became a net importer of natural gas in 2004, and, according to Government estimates, will become a net importer of oil by the end of the decade. A weakened North Sea performance means extra reliance, both for the UK and Europe as a whole, on global oil and gas network and imports. In 2002, the UK Government introduced a 10 per cent supplementary charge and in 2005, doubled the charge to 20 per cent in an attempt to capture more revenues from the oil industry because of the increase in the price of crude oil. However, higher tax rates do not necessarily generate higher fiscal revenue and in the long term may result in materially lower revenues if investment is discouraged. It is therefore argued that the increase in the fiscal take came at the wrong time for the UK Continental Shelf and that the UK Government’s concern should have been to encourage more oil production from its declining province, especially in the light of the rising concern surrounding the security of supply.Petroleum Taxation, Energy Security, Oil Price

Editorial Comment

No Abstract.&nbsp

Petroleum taxation : a critical evaluation with special application to the UK continental shelf

EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Lebanon Oil and Gas: what is on offer?

It has been said many times that Lebanon is at a crossroads. This has never been truer than now. The Lebanese economy is often associated with banking and tourism. But this perception could dramatically change if Lebanon succeeds in unlocking its oil and gas potential and, more importantly, increases its commitment to transparent and efficient management of the sector

Fiscal stabilization in oil and gas contracts – evidence and implications

The objective of this paper is to analyse how contractual stabilization devices have evolved since the late 1990s, based on a survey of 20 countries and a review of the literature and evidence on stabilization clauses. Although fiscal stability is a commonly cited attribute of a desirable upstream petroleum regime, one of the commonly observed features of existing regimes is the lack of stability. The paper studies the major triggers that push host governments to revise the fiscal terms to which they originally agreed with investors; amongst various economic and political factors, one of the obvious drivers is the oil price. Chasing the price of oil, however, is a burdensome and inefficient strategy, as oil is an internationally traded commodity where short-term price volatility is the norm. The paper’s three broad conclusions include: First, classical stabilization models have not been successful in practice; Second, the more modern clauses are more likely to treat changes in fiscal terms symmetrically, and may be equally beneficial to governments and oil companies; Third, modern stabilization clauses can allow policymakers to consider the overall tax system and its impact on revenue and growth, without worrying about the specific impact on the oil and gas sector, and without penalizing investors in the sector. Fiscal stability clauses in developing countries will remain a key feature of contractual agreements and oil and gas laws for years to come. However, the effectiveness of the more modern clauses in achieving the desired outcome remains as questionable as that of previous stability models, particularly in countries which continue to lack the administrative capability to enforce these mechanisms, and where government policy in general and investment laws and the judiciary in particular lack credibility

Transfer of mesenchymal stem cell mitochondria to CD4+ T cells contributes to repress Th1 differentiation by downregulating T-bet expression

International audienceBackground: Mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) are multipotent cells with strong tissue repair and immunomodulatory properties. Due to their ability to repress pathogenic immune responses, and in particular T cell responses, they show therapeutic potential for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, organ rejection and graft versus host disease. MSCs have the remarkable ability to export their own mitochondria to neighboring cells in response to injury and inflammation. However, whether mitochondrial transfer occurs and has any role in the repression of CD4+ Th1 responses is unknown.Methods and results: In this report we have utilized CD4+ T cells from HNT TCR transgenic mice that develop Th1-like responses upon antigenic stimulation in vitro and in vivo. Allogeneic bone marrow-derived MSCs reduced the diabetogenic potential of HNT CD4+ T cells in vivo in a transgenic mouse model of disease. In co-culture experiments, we have shown that MSCs were able to reduce HNT CD4+ T cell expansion, expression of key effector markers and production of the effector cytokine IFNγ after activation. This was associated with the ability of CD4+ T cells to acquire mitochondria from MSCs as evidenced by FACS and confocal microscopy. Remarkably, transfer of isolated MSC mitochondria to CD4+ T cells resulted in decreased T cell proliferation and IFNγ production. These effects were additive with those of prostaglandin E2 secreted by MSCs. Finally, we demonstrated that both co-culture with MSCs and transfer of isolated MSC mitochondria prevent the upregulation of T-bet, the master Th1 transcription factor, on activated CD4+ T cells.Conclusion: The present study demonstrates that transfer of MSC mitochondria to activated CD4+ T cells results in the suppression of Th1 responses in part by downregulating T-bet expression. Furthermore, our studies suggest that MSC mitochondrial transfer might represent a general mechanism of MSC-dependent immunosuppression

Aerobic release and biodegradation of dissolved organic matter from frozen peat: Effects of temperature and heterotrophic bacteria

International audienceUnderstanding the conditions of dissolved organic matter (DOM) release from thawing peat in the Arctic regions and identifying the pathways of processing DOM by soil and aquatic heterotrophic bacteria are critical in the context of rapid climate change. Until now, experimental approaches did not allow quantitative predictions of temperature and biota effects on carbon release from peat in permafrost-affected aquatic environments. In this study, we incubated frozen peat and its aqueous leachate at various temperatures (4, 25 or 45°C), with and without culturable heterotrophic bacteria Iodobacter sp., extracted from thermokarst lakes, to quantify the release and the removal rate of organic carbon (OC) with time. The metabolic diversity of the native microbial community associated with the substrates involved in OC processing was also characterized. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that, after degradation, the associated bacteria are mostly located in the inner parts of plant cells, and that the degradation of organic matter around bacteria is more pronounced at 4 and 25°C compared to 45°C. The metabolic diversity of heterotrophic bacteria was equally high at 4 and 25°C, but lower at 45°C. Regardless of the microbial consortium (native community alone or with added culturable heterotrophs), both the OC release from peat and the OC removal from peat leachate by bacteria were similar at 4 and 25°C. Very low apparent activation energies of DOM biodegradation between 4 and 25°C (−4.23 ± 12.3 kJ mol − 1) suggest that the short-period of surface water warming in summer would have an insignificant effect on DOM microbial processing. Such duration (1-3 weeks) is comparable with the water residence time in peat depressions and permafrost subsidences, where peat degradation and DOM microbial processing occur. This questions the current paradigm of a drastic effect of temperature rise on organic carbon release from frozen peatlands, and should be considered for modelling short-term climate impacts in these regions