The general manager ofIneos Energy said the company will prioritise expansion in the United States and Denmark over the United Kingdom, arguing that politicians in the country have caused “pain” to the oil and gas sector.
David Bucknall told the Times that the United States and Denmark, the two other regions in which the company operates, were “much easier to invest in at the moment.”
“If you look at the United States, there are different rhetoric at the highest levels on different sides of the political spectrum, but the reality is that the people at the Department of Energy are professionals,” he added.
“They know what they’re doing. We haven’t seen a lot of change at the operational level, at the practical level, in terms of oil and gas, no matter who is president of the United States. That makes it a very profitable thing to invest in.”
In contrast, Bucknall said the UK’s political landscape had become more focused on political parties “outdoing each other in how they can inflict pain on industry”.
Ineos Energy, created in 2020, manages the energy-related operations of the Ineos petrochemical group, which has founded by billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe.
It entered the US market last year by acquiring part of Chesapeake Energy’s oil and gas assets in South Texas for $1.4 billion.
Bucknall’s comments come ahead of the UK general election on Thursday, which has placed Energy policy in the foreground.
The Conservatives have pledged to keep the government’s windfall tax on oil and gas profits, introduced after the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022, until 2029 unless prices return to normal for a prolonged period.
Meanwhile, Labour has promised to increase the levy to 78% from 75% and scrap “unjustifiably generous tax breaks” used by businesses to reduce their tax bills.
“If you take away the tax breaks and add windfall taxes, then it’s very easy to make things unprofitable,” Bucknall noted.
He added that UK tax uncertainty made it more difficult to predict potential long-term returns from any acquisition and that UK investment would be more focused on developing existing licences.
Par CityAM
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