The North Sea oil and gas industry is facing death due to the Government’s windfall tax, one of Britain’s richest men has warned.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who founded chemicals group Ineos, said taxes were ‘so high that profits no longer fund future investments’.
He accused the Government of playing ‘primitive politics’ when it introduced the levy last year.
Pressure: Sir Jim Ratcliffe (pictured), whose firm Ineos owns the Forties oil pipeline, said taxes were now ‘so high that profits no longer fund future investments’
Rishi Sunak put an extra 25 per cent tax on industry profits when he was Chancellor as energy prices soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This was raised to 35 per cent by his successor Jeremy Hunt. But Ratcliffe said the levy, which imposes an effective tax rate of 75 per cent on profits made from the North Sea to help fund government support schemes for household fuel bills, was jeopardising energy security.
‘What the country needs is energy security, which means encouraging developments in 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 it to death’ move, he said.
