GlobalData says United States deepwater royalty cut will make its tax burden significantly lower than regional peers 

CUTTING the US deepwater royalty rate from 18.75 percent to 12.5 percent for new leases, as proposed by the US Royalty Policy Committee in its meeting on February 28, would significantly improve the attractiveness of the country’s fiscal regime, according to GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The proposal comes after the same rate cut was already made for shallow water areas in 2017.

The passage of the US tax bill in December 2017, which cut the corporate tax rate from a 35 percent top rate to 21 percent and introduced immediate deductions for capital expenditure through 2022, already increases investors’ shares of cash flow to make the regime more competitive than those in Brazil, Mexico and Guyana.

Will Scargill, senior analyst at GlobalData said: “The proposed royalty cut would further reduce the fiscal burden and would advance the regime to the most attractive among oil producing countries in the region. In boosting the competitiveness of the fiscal regime, the proposed measure would hope to incentivize new exploration in the mature Gulf of Mexico.”

– Mar. 5, 2018 @ 19:00 GMT |