مطالعۀ تطبیقی ترتیبات مالی قراردادهای نفتی و منافع کشورهای تولیدکنندۀ نفت

نظام مالی قراردادهای نفتی بالادستی، مجموعه‌ای از عناصر و ابزارها شامل بهرۀ مالکانه، مالیات‌ها، مشارکت در تولید، انواع دستمزد (حق‌الزحمه) و ... است که تعیین‌کنندۀ چگونگی تسهیم منافع و درآمد حاصل از منابع نفت و گاز بین دولت میزبان از یک سو و شرکت‌های نفتی بین‌المللی از سوی دیگر است. اینکه دولت‌ها و شرکت‌های نفتی کدام‌یک از ابزارهای مالی را در یک قرارداد نفتی به‌کار گیرند، به ملاحظات زیادی بستگی دارد. این پژوهش در نظر دارد به روش توصیفی تحلیلی، ضمن بررسی ویژگی‌های اصلی ترتیبات مالی تعدادی از کشورهای بزرگ تولیدکنندۀ نفت و گاز، به تبیین عوامل تاثیرگذار بر گرایش کشورهای میزبان در به‌کارگیری هریک از انواع ترتیبات و شروط مالی در قراردادهای نفتی پرداخته، سپس جایگاه قراردادهای جدید نفتی ایران را از این منظر بررسی نماید. با این رویکرد و فارغ از نوع قراردادهای نفتیِ به‌کار گرفته‌شده (شامل امتیازی، مشارکت در تولید و یا خدماتی)، تفاوت‌های قابل ملاحظه‌ای در ماهیت ترتیبات مالی قراردادهای نفتی کشورهای مختلف (اعم از کشورهای صنعتی و توسعه‌یافته در مقایسه با کشورهای درحال توسعه) مشاهده می‌شود که این تفاوت‌ها عمدتاً برگرفته از شرایط اقتصادی و میزان وابستگی کشورهای تولیدکننده به درآمدهای نفتی و نیز قدرت حاکمیتی و نظارتی کشورها است.

A Comparative Study of the Fiscal Arrangements of Petroleum Contracts and Benefits of Oil Producing Countries

Fiscal system of upstream petroleum contracts is a set of tools and elements such as royalties, bonuses, taxes, production sharing and fees that determine how the revenues from petroleum resources are divided between the International Oil Companies (IOCs) and the government. Which fiscal tools and elements to be employed in a petroleum contract depends on numerous considerations. By implementing a descriptiveanalytical method of research, this study aims to review the main characteristics of fiscal arrangements in some of the major oil producing countries (including Norway, United Kingdom, Russia, Brazil, Venezuela and Iraq) and represent the effective factors on host governments’ tendency in applying different types of fiscal features in their petroleum contracts. Subsequently, the status of the new Iranian Petroleum Contract (IPC) to be analyzed in this respect. So from this point of view and regardless of the type of applied petroleum contracts (i.e. concessions, production sharing contracts and risk service contracts), there are many considerable differences in the nature of fiscal tools applying in petroleum contracts of different countries which reflects the country’s economic conditions and degree of its dependence on oil revenues and also supervisory power of government.Analyzing the petroleum contracts of viewed countries shows that depending on economic situation, macrofiscal policy and development objectives, oil producing countries have different priorities in their contracts. Countries with economy’s dependence on oil resources seek different level of upfront revenue streams. So, they apply some fiscal terms such as considerable amount of royalties and bounces which provide an early form of revenues from the early stages of a petroleum contract. A number of local taxes are also implemented in some oil dependent countries in order to develop their deprived areas. Furthermore, because of poor administration and supervision of government, applying transparent fiscal features with simple calculation basis so that the required payments are easy to determine and audit are more common in these countries in order to mitigate corruption. Thus, fixedrate royalties, simple separate taxes, low cost limits, per barrel fee and so on, are widely used in their contracts.On the contrary, the main focus of developed countries with good quality of administration is on maximizing the value of government revenue from petroleum projects in different economic conditions through variety of fairly complex fiscal arrangements such as complex income taxes with a wide variety of tax credits and allowance. All issues relating to environment protection are also clearly defined in the contracts of these countries.