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Falklands Tax Dispute Clouding Oil Dream for Investors: Energy
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Fourteen years after the first well was sunk off the Falkland Islands, a tax dispute threatens investment in a nascent oil industry that may yield more than $10 billion in royalties for the British territory’s 2,563 residents.
The government sent a bill for capital-gains tax to Rockhopper Exploration Plc that’s more than the archipelago’s gross domestic product. The English company, which discovered oil at the Sea Lion field, has yet to pump its first barrel of crude at the site about 300 miles (483 kilometers) off Argentina and about 700 miles from the tip of Antarctica.