UK finance minister Rishi Sunak performs a U-turn on an oil and gas windfall tax
UK hits producers with windfall tax
The Johnson government U-turns again, while still calling for more investment
UK finance minister Rishi Sunak’s commitment that he would hit the country’s upstream sector with an additional tax burden only if they failed to reinvest profits in new projects lasted a whole nine days. On Thursday, he announced what he calls a “targeted energy profits levy”—or a windfall tax by any other name. “The new levy will be charged on the profits of oil and gas companies at a rate of 25pc,” says Sunak. “It will be temporary, and when oil and gas prices return to historically more normal levels, the levy will be phased out, with a sunset clause written into the legislation.” The proposed date on the sunset clause, at which point the new levy will automatically expire, is the end of
Also in this section
17 February 2026
The 25th WPC Energy Congress, taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 26–30 April 2026, will bring together leaders from the political, industrial, financial and technology sectors under the unifying theme “Pathways to an Energy Future for All”
17 February 2026
Siemens Energy has been active in the Kingdom for nearly a century, evolving over that time from a project-based foreign supplier to a locally operating multi-national company with its own domestic supply chain and workforce
17 February 2026
Eni’s chief operating officer for global natural resources, Guido Brusco, takes stock of the company’s key achievements over the past year, and what differentiates its strategy from those of its peers in the LNG sector and beyond
16 February 2026
As the third wave of global LNG arrives, Wood Mackenzie’s director for Europe gas and LNG, Tom Marzec-Manser, discusses with Petroleum Economist the outlook for Europe’s gas market in 2026
