Today, the Senate Finance Committee finished a series of presentations by Dr. Pedro van Meurs on Alaska’s oil and gas tax structure. Dr. van Meurs is a world renowned consultant on oil and gas fiscal systems and is currently under contract with the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee to provide expert testimony to the Legislature. The Senate Finance Committee, which was joined by members of the Senate Resources Committee, scheduled four public hearings with Dr. van Meurs to review his analysis and recommendations on ways to improve our current tax structure.
The presentations were divided into four parts with two sessions on Monday and two sessions on Tuesday. In the first presentation, Dr. van Meurs’ focused on the major policy changes required in order to attract new investment and increase production on the North Slope. The second presentation was an analysis of how Alaska’s fiscal terms rank among other hydrocarbon producing jurisdictions. He focused his analysis on Alaska’s peer groups which are other petroleum exporting jurisdictions with hydrocarbon basins experiencing declining production. In the third session, Dr. van Meurs discussed the deficiencies in Alaska’s fiscal system and proposed some specific recommendations on making improvements. In the last presentation, Dr. van Meurs proposed specific fiscal terms for heavy oil, shale oil and natural gas that he views as necessary to attract investment for the production of these unconventional resources.
Dr. van Meurs and me pictured at right.
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