Finance Act 1980

108 Gas banking schemes. U.K.

(1)Subject to the provisions of this section, the Board may by regulations made by statutory instrument modify the operation of the Oil Taxation Acts in their application to cases where—

(a)a gas banking scheme is in force between the participators in two or more oil fields; and

(b)the participators in those fields elect that the modifications prescribed by the regulations shall apply.

(2)Subject to subsection (3)(a) below, a gas banking scheme for the purposes of this section is any scheme which provides for the transfer of oil consisting of gas won from one of the oil fields to which the scheme applies to or to the order of the participators in another of those fields in consideration wholly or mainly of the subsequent transfer of oil consisting of gas won from the other field to or to the order of the participators in the first-mentioned field.

(3)Regulations under this section may—

(a)prescribe additional conditions required to be satisfied for a scheme to constitute a gas banking scheme, including conditions requiring the gas to be of a description specified in the regulations;

(b)prescribe conditions subject to which, and the manner in which, an election may be made under this section and the time for which any such election is to continue in force; and

(c)contain such incidental, supplementary or transitional provisions as appear to the Board to be necessary or expedient.

(4)The foregoing provisions of this section shall apply to an international gas banking scheme as they apply to a gas banking scheme within the meaning of those provisions except that only the participators in the oil field or oil fields to which the scheme applies need make the election referred to in subsection (1)(b) above; and for the purposes of this section an international gas banking scheme is any scheme which—

(a)applies to areas that include both one or more oil fields and one or more areas under the jurisdiction of a country other than the United Kingdom; and

(b)would be a gas banking scheme within the meaning of the foregoing provisions if all the areas were oil fields and all the persons who are, or have rights, interests or obligations of, licensees in respect of those areas were participators.

(5)Regulations under this section may be made so as to apply only to gas banking schemes other than international gas banking schemes or so as to apply only to the latter; and regulations applying to a scheme of either description may differ from those applying to the other.

(6)No regulations shall be made under this section unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, the House of Commons.

(7)In this section “the Board”, “oil”, “oil field” and “participator” have the same meaning as in Part I of the Oil Taxation Act 1975 and “the Oil Taxation Acts” has the same meaning as in section 107 above.