A taxing time for North Sea

By ROB WATTS London

 01 April 2011 02:53 GMT

If you were in or near Aberdeen last week, you would have heard a gasp of disbelief. It was a collective one, the sound of the oil industry reacting to UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s surprise tax raid.

The gasp didn’t last long. Soon, a lot of people started shouting.

Plenty of rumours are now circulating about who did and did not know about the plans to increase the supplementary charge on North Sea oil and gas production from 20% to 32% when oil prices are above $75 to fund a mechanism to help ease petrol prices.

The list of the uninformed and the not consulted seems to include a lot of people — almost all outside the Treasury. Even Energy Minister Charles Hendry is said, by industry sources, to have…

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