Ehhhh……no. Political ‘wisdom’ has seen to it that we as a nation will never reap what we are entitled to either financially or supply wise. We’re the Beverly Hillbillies of Europe except it’s been given away without our permission. Stand up and take a bow Mr Rabbitt….

I cannot believe people have fallen for this tripe. ‘Potential’ is the keyword in the Providence statement. This is share price manipulation in plain sight, and what is worse, it is just about legal, just like most of what Anglo had been up to in the naughties. Some sort of regulatory body should raid the office and data cloud of Providence because it smells like a J.R. Ewing plan.

Barry,

Wrong assumption. Corporations never pass on the savings to their customers because their profit margins matter more.For example, Statoil in Norway charges Norwegians the highest gasoline costs at the pump despite their domestic oil drilling.

Tim,

Statoil is the “state oil” company of Norway. Regardless of prices people are subjected to the profits benefit the whole country of Norway and is probably the main reason Norwegians have such a high standard of living.

Ohh gret, cant even get one comment down the list without somebody with ill informed views of where our oil is, realistically the only 2 options were keep it in the ground or take our cut if the profits, we would never have got more as we had neither the resources or equipment to go exploring for oil.

Arjun, did you really refer to Thatcher as a Communist or am I going mad ?

It’s interesting that the Troika have instructed the government to sell off Irish state companies etc., to generate revenue to pay for the bail out they so kindly gave us. It is strange the Troika appear to have no opinion on the return the Irish state is getting for allowing private companies extract states resources.

Most people would call it asset stripping.

The government will still allow this corporation to pay little tax while they fleece the ordinary Irish people to fill this tax gap.

When the next election comes around we need to vote the independents, greens & even sinn fein into power to see if they can change this ! People have short memories and will still vote these people into power because they are afraid of change & believe the bulls**t they are feed…

That’s the Elephant in the room question Marlon. Due to our resources we should be loaded and easily clear our debts, but we can’t/don’t….and why is this the case? Who is stifling us from benefitting from this and lifting us out of economic misery? I don’t buy the excuse that it would cost too much to form a national oil company to explit this as the long term dividend would easily cove this and more. The government just comes up with excuse after excuse after excuse as to why we’re not using this to turn this country’s fortunes around!

Sweet F*ck all will go to the benefit the Irish people Captain Sisko, maybe you could take the Defiant to investigate if there are any more oil fields? God Speed!

There sticking to the agenda Michael they are not the smartest guys in the room and they know it and they will not fight or negotiate to get us out of the mire they will only enhance it they have their orders and they will stick to them unless they are removed out of power in Ireland this is only going to end one way with this government ..Oppression

Kerron, nonsense of course we will benefit from it. There will be royalties, tax, jobs (which result in more tax), onshore work/support and more jobs and guaranteed oil supply.

The only downside is that it will add to CO2 production and global warming.

Kerron – I have been disappointed with Labour’s performance in govt, particularly Ruairi Quinn’s broken promises. However, could u enlighten us on the ‘dirty back room deals’ that involved Pat Rabbitte. He doesn’t deserve IMHO to be compared to two corrupt liars like Ahern and Burke.

Compared to most countries we only get a pittance. Christ even that arch communist Margaret Thatcher would have been better negotiating for us than the likes of Ahern, Burke, Rabbitte, the Jack Lynch Govt.

We’d have been better off financially if we’d given half the ownership to Norway as incentive to develop it.

The Oil majors view Ireland as having given deals that would not be got any where else in the world. We’ll only ever see a fraction of the true potential of the oil discoveries.

Hey Kerron,

I’m not too well read on this but how much oil has been extracted from Irish seas so far. I’m fairly sure that it’s a negligible amount. If there was easy money to be made from extracting Irish oil then fair enough tax it like Norway. But there doesn’t seem to be and Ireland doesn’t have the know how to find it. So what are you suggesting we do? If there is no incentive for the private sector then the oil/gas whatever will stay under the sea for the next hundred years, benefiting nobody.

Brian Callinan

The British Govt. under Thatcher gave strong incentives to the Oil industry to drill and produce in the North Sea. They cut the tax to 70% on produced oil.

The tax rate is the problem here, it is unjustifiably low. We would have been better off financially if we had signed all oil rights over to Norway and did a profit share with them.

Brian I have asked Kerron these questions before and got no answers. He’s a member of Eirigi though and apparently loads of his comrades have PhDs and he’s doing one at the moment so they can all sort it out for us (loads more of them would have PhDs but they’re just too involved in politics at the moment, what with all their Dáil seats and all that).

@Arjun Deepra

I’m not trying to pick a fight necessarily but I don’t get your point.

Tax in UK was too high, so nobody drilled, so UK got no tax out of it.. Then Thatcher lowered it, people drilled, UK got some tax out of it (all be it less then what some on left would have liked).

So if we look at the Irish situation, why not decrease the tax now. Then if lots more VIABLE oil fields are found. Start to increase gradually.

@Ross
Yeah I hear you. A lot of people expect the private companies to take on all the risk and then if then find something having spent billions to just hand it all over to the state. If there is no incentive then it will just stay in the ground. Can you imagine what a farce it would be if we set up a semi state to look for the oil?

That is my point Brian. A 70% tax rate was considered an incentive to drill in one of the most hostile oil provinces in the world. It was an incentive for oil companies to continue with fields that were pushing past peak and becoming more expensive to drill.

The continental shelf of Ireland is a much more hospitable environment to be producing in, the water is not that deep and the weather and environmental conditions are much more favourable.

The province is a new one, so their will not be need for secondary or tertiary production methods for a long time.

The 70% tax rate Britain had, was an incentive, the tax rate here, when set off against production expenses for means that the companies are in effect getting it for free.

It was a bad deal for Ireland, its been an incredible deal for the companies involved, and they know it. They were out to do the best for themselves, they didn’t realize that the Govt. here were going to be such walk overs.

Pack it in there R-bowe will ye!?

my response to you in which I mentioned that many of my party comrades were educated to third level was an honest response to a typical classist right-wing drivel comment by you, in which you accused people you know nothing about of being “work-shy” “spongers” and “un-educated”

Kerron , relax. There was Atlantic Resources where Tony O’Reilly was going to bring in oil. Now…….. ???

There’s nothing to stop Irish people buying shares in Providence, I’ve been on them since €2.25 and they are now at €7.75 and I fully expect them to top out at the €15-€17 mark.

Also check out Irish company Petroneft who are currently on the Irish Stock Exchange at 9c a share. They have 10 wells to drill in Siberia and they struck oil with the first of them now producing steady at 2,400 barrels per day- news on the other 9 is due in the next 6 weeks and if it goes well then the share price will sky rocket. Their CEO Dennis Francis is known in the oil business as being able to smell the stuff underground.

Sorry Kerron I never said work shy or spongers. It was entirely to do with their education level and I still stick by my assertion that most people who are members/supporters of eirigi are poorly educated.

I’m informed from a family member working in the industry that it is very good.

check out John Perkins : http://bit.ly/Q5gekI who advised Iceland and spoke in Dublin

Iceland listened. They kept their fish……

Comparing Ireland and Norway is unfair given how easy it is to find oil in Norway compared to here. The financial risk and cost is greater here

That being said the government should look to introduce a new tax, perhaps a carbon tax on oil and gas finds that are not pumped direct into the Irish market.

Not sure if I would be happy for that sector to fall into public ownership given the efficiencies we see in other areas of the public sector

Or perhaps we should have an expert from Norway visit and make a recommendation on what we should do?

It is exceptionally difficult to source and develop oil in Norway. Most of their fields are far out in the North sea, which is considered one of the most hostile oil provinces developed to date.

The oil rights should have been signed over to Norway and we do a profit share. Norway would have made a killing but we’d receive many times the tax take as the current arrangement. Win Win.,

We had a Norwegian delegation come over and try to give advice to the government but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears sadly….

Yep, in Norway you can hardly move for tripping over the oil fields. Oh wait, some pesky facts:

“Volatile weather conditions in Europe’s North Sea have made drilling particularly hazardous, claiming many lives. The conditions also make extraction a costly process; by the 1980s, costs for developing new methods and technologies to make the process both efficient and safe, far exceeded NASA’s budget to land a man on the moon”

Why did Statoil pull out of the country?

Many of the most promising licences were sold off in the early 70′s for 500 Irish pounds a pop. Licences with the same geographical underlay and potential in Britain were being sold at between 500k and 1.5mn sterling at the time.

Many of the cheap Irish licences were sold within a few years at their proper valuation, making the holders millionaires over night for the modern price of a car.

Lets just say, it helped to be able to enjoy the craic and a pint with Jack Lynch and his cabinet colleagues at the time, cause it sure as hell was kept quiet enough on the market.

So if we pull the contracts, we will be sued for 500 punts. Great news!

They’re already here, they used banks of mass destruction this time.

Then we can go back to horse-trading, story-telling and playing our bodrháns, the things we are really good at.

Clowns or would they better be described as bought off traitors.

Arjun your opinion devalued when you called thatcher a communist. You need a history lesson she was the complete bi polar opposite of a communist

Very few countries do but they still apply industry standards in taxation. Many feels in the North Sea are taxed at 70%. They still are vastly profitable to the oil companies.

It is economic mismanagement, the same rubbish that we’ve had for 40 years, part incompetence – part corruption and only tolerated in this country.

Do you think that this would be tolerated in any other European country. No, of course not. Just another jigsaw piece in why we go broke ever 25 years.

It’s very odd isn’t Patrick, if somebody told you there was $1,000 of gold in your back garden, but it was going to cost $900 to get it out and the difference would be split 50/50, I’d say fair enough.

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