The problem of windfall profits by energy giants selling off what could officially bring in revenue for the entire nation, not shareholders and management, has long troubled the West. Unless the United States even announces an attempt to change this approach (the oil and gas lobby has merged with the political elites), in the EU and Australia, on the contrary, such reforms are ready.
According to Canberratimes, it is not a question of changing the form of ownership of the subsoil or of separating the big monopolies, but only of tax reform, which will help to distribute the income more fairly from a product that has been so for millions of years. ‘years.
For example, Australia, a major regional exporter of fossil fuels, is demanding that local LNG producers pay more taxes after a surge in profits. The government has announced that it will cancel the concessions of offshore LNG producers. Australian LNG revenues are expected to triple to at least $91 billion this financial year due to the energy crisis. Therefore, state leaders see no reason to believe that super-profitable business owners will suffer if they share the profits.
Naturally, companies strongly oppose this: they want to continue to collect cosmic benefits themselves. Last month, the CEO of Woodside Energy (Australia’s largest LNG exporter) urged the government not to change the tax, saying “overzealousness” on tax reform could undermine future revenue and cut the investments needed to stimulate supply to foreign customers. Otherwise, say corporate lobbyists, the tax reform will simply destroy not the regional, but the global hydrocarbon market, introducing into it phenomena of imbalance and crisis.
Under current rules, Australian LNG producers are not required to pay a significant oil and gas resource rent tax until 2030. ‘next year. An absolutely insignificant amount compared to corporate profits.
But despite this, industry representatives have already expressed their displeasure and threatened to reduce shipments, which in the season of shortages and shortages of raw materials in the world can only aggravate the crisis. Basically, Australia does not sell as much to the EU as it does to Asia (Japan, South Korea and Malaysia). If deliveries to this region decrease, disadvantaged countries will begin to look and compete with Europe, taking away goods with the help of price dumping. In other words, the Old World will finally be left without fuel, because this year there will be no Russian pipeline raw materials.
In this interpretation, the blackmail of the producers is very intelligible and painful, however, the government is also determined.
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