WATCHING THE WORLD BRITISH VOTE LOOMS

With Roger Vielvoye from London Election fever is truly in the air in Britain. The media is full of speculation about likely dates for a vote following a surge in popularity of the ruling Conservative party. The prospect of Prime Minister John Major setting a poll date as early as November has generated long newspaper lists of the issues on which the election will be fought.

Sept. 23, 1991

3 min read

Election fever is truly in the air in Britain.

The media is full of speculation about likely dates for a vote following a surge in popularity of the ruling Conservative party.

The prospect of Prime Minister John Major setting a poll date as early as November has generated long newspaper lists of the issues on which the election will be fought.

Thankfully for the locally based oil and gas companies, the energy business does not, at this stage, appear to be a contentious issue, likely to spark friction between the Conservative and Labor parties during the election campaign.

NO MORE BNOC

Previous elections have been anxious times for offshore oil and gas operators. Labor is traditionally the party of state intervention with a liking for control of industry operations through a state oil company.

Labor is now trying to shed that image throughout the manufacturing and finance sectors of industry in general. Oil companies have been assured that a new Labor government will not mean resurrection of British National Oil Corp. under another name. It could, however, lead to state encouragement for a national center of excellence along the lines of France's Institute Francais du Petrole.

And when it comes to taxation of offshore oil and gas, Labor's proposals to support incremental and marginal development find pretty broad support among offshore operators.

Their views on incentives required to maintain offshore production have been widely canvassed by Labor party researchers.

Frank Doran, Labor's spokesman on oil and gas matters, said a number of options are available to encourage field development projects. One is use of a new type of submission to the Department of Energy called a life of field management plan.

BEWARE OF GAS VIEWS

While companies are broadly happy with Labor's ideas on offshore taxes, they should be wary of Doran's views about the gas industry. Doran said he is not happy about gas fields being developed specifically to provide fuel for cogeneration.

As in many other parts of Europe, British power companies are looking to cogeneration to satisfy public demand to reduce atmospheric emissions from electricity production.

Labor always has had strong ties with coal mining unions, which see the enthusiasm for gas fired power generation as a major threat to the largest single outlet for indigenously produced coal in Britain.

If Labor regained power in the next election and Doran's views were translated into a policy that militated against the use of gas for power generation, development of new gas resources in the central North Sea might have to proceed at a much slower place.

And that could have serious implications for the overall level of offshore development because deep, high pressure gas/condensate fields are one of the biggest untrapped resources off the U. K.