Time consistency in Petroleum Taxation - The case of Norway

,Petroleum; Taxation

International Competition for R&D Investments (new title: Spillovers and international competition for investments)

Two jurisdictions compete to attract shares of the R&D investment budget of a large multinational enterprise, whose investments potentially confer positive spillovers on national firms. The firm contributes to local welfare by these spillovers (should they materialize), by tax payments and by dividends paid to local investors. The firm has private information both about its efficiency and about spillovers, and in particular whether the latter do exist or not. It is shown that strategic tax competition may lead to overinvestments relative to the first-best allocation, that the excessive investments occur in the country where the positive spillover effects are lowest, and that they are most severe for the least efficient firms.Tax competition, R&D, common agency

Multinationals, tax competition, and outside options

.Tax competition; mobility; common agency; countervailing incentives

Asymmetry and uncertainty in capital formation: An application to oil investment

,Oil; Investment

CCS from the gas-fired power station at Kårstø A commercial analysis

.Carbon Capture;

Disposal of Petroleum Installations - Major Policy Issues

Following the Brent Spar controversy, the OSPAR countries reached a unanimous agreement in 1998 for the future rules for disposal of petroleum installations. The vast majority of existing offshore installations will be re-used or returned to shore for recycling or disposal. For installations where there is no generic solution, one should take a case-by-case approach. We provide a survey of international economic and regulatory issues pertaining to disposal of petroleum installations, and provide specific examples by analysing the Norwegian decommissioning and disposal policy. Optimal disposal policy can be analysed by cost-benefit analyses with distributional effects, subject to environmental and goodwill constraints.Petroleum installations, decommissioning, disposal, externalities

Strategic Tax Competition; Implications of National Ownership

Two jurisdictions compete to capture the rents of a large multinational enterprise (MNE) which invests locally and which is partly owned by local investors. The MNE contributes to local welfare by tax payments and dividends, and it has private information about the efficiency of the operations in the two localisations. It is shown that the distortions in the MNE's real investment portfolio are determined by a trade-off between fiscal externalities and equity externalities, and that investments in the case of strategic tax competition may be lower than in the co-operative case. Ownership matters, and we show how the firm may reduce its overall tax payments by influencing the distribution of owner shares between investors in the two countries.Tax competition, mobility, common agency

Petroleum Taxation: Experience and Issues

,Oil; Taxation

Robust Strategies For Rig Procurement

Scarcity of rigs on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) has led to a number of interesting changes in the procurement of such units and in the relationship between oil companies and rig contractors. Small oil companies have joined forces to establish a rig consortium, examples can be seen of changes to risk sharing between oil companies and rig contractors, vertical integration has taken place with oil companies owning rigs and rig contractors applying for and securing production licences, and joint ventures are being discussed between oil companies and drilling contractors. The paper describes and analyses these trends from the perspective of an optimum procurement strategy for an oil company. Trade-offs in rig procurement are analysed. Robust provision of rig capacity is required to satisfy drilling commitments to governments and to drill time-critical production and injection wells. These requirements need to be offset against the temporary drop in accounting returns and credit ratings which might result from a potential oversupply or mismatch of rig capacity with a consequent decline in rates.acceptedVersio

Improved recovery from existing fields. A survey of decision criteria

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