The answer to question AQW 7879/17-22 has confirmed what we suspected. That the Department for the Economy has allowed validation of pertroleum licence applications PLA1/16 (EHA) and PLA2/16 (Tamboran Resources UK Limited) without the requirement to submit audited accounts.
The answer :-
This is in violation of the Petroleum Production Regulations (Northern Ireland) 1987 as amended by The Petroleum Production (Amendment) Regulations(Northern Ireland) 2010
The ammended regulation 3(3) states
(3) In respect of each applicant for a licence which is a body corporate there shall accompany the application two copies of the most recent audited accounts of such applicant and two copies of the most recent audited accounts of any body corporate having control of such applicant.
whilst 3(6) also states
(6) Where the most recent audited accounts of a body corporate whose accounts are required to accompany any application are in respect of a period ending on a date more than twelve months before the date of the application, there shall also accompany the application two copies of a balance sheet showing the state of the body corporate’s affairs as at the latest date within that twelve months period in respect of which a balance sheet can be made available.
The ultimate beneficial owners of these offshore corporations are unknown to us, and from the FOIs we have seen it would appear the Department has been unable to verify the information given to them by TRUK on Spinner Energy post validation, with the Financial Intelligence Unit in the Isle Of Man.
In a briefing in January 2020, the Minister was advised thus.
10. The legislative framework is such that, without proper assessment of the issues raised in the public consultation, there are no legal grounds for the Department to reject the applications. Such an action would leave the Department open to legal challenge.” [original emphasis]
It would seem that the validation bar for a petroleum licence is very low indeed, and that once a licence has been validated there appears an expectation of a grant of the licence.
It looks like the Department may have placed a lien on public funds. This is very serious. We know there are other financial tests which do not seem to have been passed by Tamboran, yet we also know that not just was their application validated, but its been determined that despite their foul ups last time out, Tamboran are considered fit to hold a petroleum licence.
The problem is the Department who are the promoters of oil and gas, are also the regulator. This though is anything but regulation. It looks like the rules and regulations are being ignored. Those rules and regulations were put in place to ensure financial viability and proper transparent company finance structures existed.
We demand an immediate rejection of both licence applications, and an investigation into how these companies were allowed stay in the process.
