Finance Act 1991

103 Allowance of certain expenditure relating to abandonment, decommissioning assets, etc. U.K.

(1) Section 3 of the principal Act (allowance of certain expenditure) shall be amended in accordance with subsections (2) to (6) below.

(2) With respect to expenditure incurred on or after 19th March 1991, in subsection (1), after paragraph (h) there shall be inserted the following paragraph—

“(hh) obtaining an abandonment guarantee, as defined in section 104 of the Finance Act 1991”.

(3) With respect to expenditure incurred after 30th June 1991, in subsection (1), for paragraph (i) there shall be substituted the following paragraphs—

“(i) closing down, decommissioning, abandoning or wholly or partially dismantling or removing any qualifying asset;

(j) carrying out qualifying restoration work consequential upon the closing down of the field or any part of it.”

(4) After subsection (1) there shall be inserted the following subsections—

“(1A) In this section “qualifying asset has the same meaning as in the Oil Taxation Act 1983; and, in the case of a qualifying asset which was leased or hired, the reference in subsection (1)(i) above to decommissioning includes a reference to carrying out any restoration or similar work which is required to be carried out to comply with the terms of the contract of lease or hire.

(1B) In subsection (1)(j) above “qualifying restoration work, in relation to a participator in an oil field, means—

(a) restoring (including landscaping) land on which a qualifying asset is or was situated; or

(b) restoring the seabed (including the subsoil thereof) on which a qualifying asset is or was situated.

(1C) In any case where—

(a) expenditure is incurred by a participator for any of the purposes mentioned in paragraph (i) or paragraph (j) of subsection (1) above, and

(b) the participator is or was a participator in two or more oil fields and the qualifying asset which is relevant to the incurring of that expenditure is, at the end of the claim period concerned, a qualifying asset in respect of more than one of those oil fields,

the expenditure shall be apportioned between those oil fields in such manner as is just and reasonable.

(1D) Without prejudice to any apportionment under subsection (1C) above, in any case where—

(a) any expenditure incurred by a participator would, apart from this subsection, be regarded as wholly incurred for any of the purposes mentioned in paragraph (i) or paragraph (j) of subsection (1) above, and

(b) the qualifying asset which is relevant to the incurring of that expenditure has at some time been used otherwise than in connection with an oil field,

only such portion of the expenditure as it is just and reasonable to apportion to the use in connection with an oil field shall be regarded as allowable for any of the purposes referred to in paragraph (a) above.”

(5) After subsection (5A) there shall be inserted the following subsection—

“(5B) Expenditure incurred by a participator in an oil field shall be taken to be incurred for the purpose mentioned in paragraph (hh) of subsection (1) above if, and only if,—

(a) it consists of fees, commission or incidental costs incurred wholly and exclusively for the purposes of obtaining an abandonment guarantee; and

(b) the abandonment guarantee is obtained in order to comply with a term of a relevant agreement relating to that field under which the participator is required to provide security (whether or not specifically in the form of an abandonment guarantee) in respect of his liabilities to contribute to field abandonment costs;

and expressions used in this subsection shall be construed in accordance with section 104 of the Finance Act 1991.”

(6) In subsection (6) (apportionment of expenditure)—

(a) at the beginning there shall be inserted “Without prejudice to any apportionment under subsection (1C) or subsection (1D) above ”; and

(b) after the words “subsections (1) and (5) above there shall be inserted “other than paragraph (hh) of subsection (1) ”.

(7) In section 10 of the principal Act (exempt gas)—

(a) in subsection (2) for the words “and (i) of subsection (1) there shall be substituted “(hh), (i) and (j) of subsection (1) and subsection (1D) ”;

(b) in subsection (3) for the words “paragraph (a), (b), (c) or (i) there shall be substituted “any of paragraphs (a), (b), (c), (hh), (i) and (j) ”; and

(c) in subsection (3)(b) for the words “paragraph (i) there shall be substituted “paragraph (hh), (i) or (j) ”.

(8) So far as they relate to the paragraph (hh) inserted by subsection (2) above, the amendments in subsections (5) to (7) above have effect with respect to expenditure incurred on or after 19th March 1991 and, subject to that, the amendments in subsections (4) to (7) above have effect with respect to expenditure incurred after 30th June 1991.