Study ends on petroleum laws change
A parliamentary committee yesterday unveiled its study on proposed amendments of two laws that would result in a reduction of benefits and incentives given to petroleum exploration and production companies.
The committee appointed by the National Legislative Assembly to study problems concerning the enforcement of existing petroleum laws held a public hearing yesterday.
Its chairman General Sakol Sajjanit said the NLA was expected to be present the proposals to amend the Petroleum Act and the Petroluem Income Tax Act to the government for consideration on Tuesday.
The government may assign the Energy Ministry to study the positive and negative impacts of the amendments before sending the revised laws to the NLA for promulgation, he said.
He said he did not believe the government would change the important parts of the drafts.
The proposed amendments cover royalty and special bonus payments, petroleum income tax, 13 legal recommendations, and the introduction of production sharing contracts and other regimes for petroleum exploration and production activities.
Sakol said the proposed changes would result in the sharper supervision of petroleum exploration and production activities, reduce the incentives and privileges granted to the private sector, and provide more returns to the state, regardless of the regimes – which can be concessions, production-sharing contracts or production contracts.
He said the process involved adding additional regimes to the current concession system.
Introducing production-sharing contracts required amending the two existing laws concerning royalty fees, deductible cost allowances, and income-tax rates, he said.
These rates have to be revised to a level that will yield better, or at least the same, returns to the state, he said.
