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THE NOTEBOOK HARGREAVES LANSDOWN’S SUSANNAH STREETER TAKES THE PEN P10 MONDAY 21 AUGUST 2023
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FRANK DALLERES ENGLAND’s World Cup campaign ended in failure yesterday, with the Lionesses losing 1-0 to Spain in the final. A first half goal from Spain’s Olga Carmona was enough to condemn England to defeat in the country’s first football World Cup final since 1966. Mary Earps saved a penalty to give England hope but in truth Spain comfortably rode out the second half, and 13 minutes of added time, to secure their first women’s World Cup win. £ SPORT: PAGES 18-19
Lenders to snub crunch oil and gas Treasury meeting NICHOLAS EARL THE UK’s oil and gas sector faces the growing prospect of a cash crunch, with the Treasury’s latest attempts to lure lenders back to the North Sea this week likely to fall on deaf ears, City A.M. understands. The Treasury has invited some of the world’s major banks to a meeting this Friday including multiple British lenders such as Barclays, Natwest and Lloyds, alongside European banks such as BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, DNB, ING and Societe Generale, plus the US financial institution Wells Fargo.
However, only a handful are expected to attend the meeting, with dozens of banks already pulling out of investing in domestic fossil fuels due to concerns over the UK’s poor investment climate and growing pressure to fulfil ESG obligations. Most recently, this included BNP Paribas, which followed in the footsteps of HSBC last year when it committed to stopping new oil and gas financing for freshly approved projects. The Mail on Sunday first reported the meeting. While Shell and BP are
sufficiently resourced to fund projects with their own cash flows, the vast majority of producers – which actually make up the lion’s share of North Sea output – are smaller and depend on favourable lending terms from banks to finance projects. However, the government’s decision to toughen the windfall tax
last year so that it is a six-year policy has weakened investor confidence in the North Sea, with banks considering the levy to be a policy change – making their terms of financing oil and gas exploration more stringent for producers. The introduction of a price floor for oil and gas from the Treasury has not been sufficient to
boost confidence, with Whitehall not even expecting the mechanism to be triggered over the duration of the Energy Profits Levy. Meanwhile, recently unveiled plans to consult on the tax regime with the industry will not include the windfall tax. Further worsening investment appetites is the growing expectation that Labour will win the next election, which will most likely take place next winter, because the party has committed to a de facto 75 per cent tax. £ CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
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