A Comparative Study of the Fiscal Arrangements of Petroleum Contracts and Benefits of Oil Producing Countries

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Assistant Professor, Private Law, Faculty of Law and Politcal sciences, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

2 Ph.D Student of Management of Oil and Gas International Contracts, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Fiscal system of upstream petroleum contracts is a set of tools and elements such as royalties, bonuses, taxes, production sharing and fees that determine how the revenues from petroleum resources are divided between the International Oil Companies (IOCs) and the government. Which fiscal tools and elements to be employed in a petroleum contract depends on numerous considerations. By implementing a descriptive-analytical method of research, this study aims to review the main characteristics of fiscal arrangements in some of the major oil producing countries (including Norway, United Kingdom, Russia, Brazil, Venezuela and Iraq) and represent the effective factors on host governments' tendency in applying different types of fiscal features in their petroleum contracts. Subsequently, the status of the new Iranian Petroleum Contract (IPC) to be analyzed in this respect. So from this point of view and regardless of the type of applied petroleum contracts (i.e. concessions, production sharing contracts and risk service contracts), there are many considerable differences in the nature of fiscal tools applying in petroleum contracts of different countries which reflects the country's economic conditions and degree of its dependence on oil revenues and also supervisory power of government.
Analyzing the petroleum contracts of viewed countries shows that depending on economic situation, macro-fiscal policy and development objectives, oil producing countries have different priorities in their contracts. Countries with economy's dependence on oil resources seek different level of upfront revenue streams. So, they apply some fiscal terms such as considerable amount of royalties and bounces which provide an early form of revenues from the early stages of a petroleum contract. A number of local taxes are also implemented in some oil dependent countries in order to develop their deprived areas. Furthermore, because of poor administration and supervision of government, applying transparent fiscal features with simple calculation basis so that the required payments are easy to determine and audit are more common in these countries in order to mitigate corruption. Thus, fixed-rate royalties, simple separate taxes, low cost limits, per barrel fee and so on, are widely used in their contracts.
On the contrary, the main focus of developed countries with good quality of administration is on maximizing the value of government revenue from petroleum projects in different economic conditions through variety of fairly complex fiscal arrangements such as complex income taxes with a wide variety of tax credits and allowance. All issues relating to environment protection are also clearly defined in the contracts of these countries.  

Keywords

Main Subjects

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Comparative Law Review
Volume 10, Issue 2
Autumn & Winter
October 2019
Pages 665-694

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