Fiscal Systems for Hydrocarbons : Design Issues

Although host governments and the investors may share one common objective-the desire for the project to generate high levels of revenue-their other goals are not entirely aligned. Host governments aim to maximize the rent for their country over time, while achieving other development and socioeconomic objectives. Investors' aim is to ensure that the return on investment is consistent with the risk associated with the project, and with their corporations' strategic objectives. To reconcile these often conflicting objectives, more and more countries rely on transparent institutional arrangements and flexible, neutral fiscal regimes. This paper examines the key elements of the legal and fiscal frameworks utilized in the petroleum sector and aims to outline desirable features that should be considered in the design of fiscal policy with the objective of optimizing the host government's benefits, taking into account the effect that this would have on the private sector's investment. Chapters 2 and 3 provide background material on, respectively, the stages of an oil and gas project and the type of legal arrangements normally used in the petroleum sector. The relative advantages and disadvantages of the tax and non-tax instruments used in petroleum fiscal regimes are discussed in Chapter 4. Chapter 5 outlines the features of successful fiscal regimes, while system measures and economic indicators are described in Chapter 6. Finally, in Chapter 7, a sensitivity analysis is used to illustrate some typical fiscal systems' design issues.