Payments Data

Scope

This year we have included the following payment streams:

• Oil and gas sector: combined total for Ring-Fence Corporation Tax (RFCT) and Supplementary Charge (SC); Petroleum Revenue Tax (PRT) and Advance Petroleum Revenue Tax; Petroleum Licence Fees; the OGA Levy; and payments to The Crown Estate and Crown Estate Scotland in respect of pipelines operated by companies that are engaged in UK extractive activities. The MSG agreed that companies which paid more than £1 million to the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) should also be included in the reconciliation.
• Mining and Quarrying sector: Corporation Tax; extractive-related payments to The Crown Estate (TCE) and Crown Estate Scotland (CES); and monetary payments to local planning authorities as part of planning obligations.

Continuing to shadow the Reports on Payments to Government Regulations 2014, the materiality threshold remained at £86,000, applied to each revenue stream at group level. The government agencies required to report for 2019 UK EITI were HMRC, the OGA, TCE and CES.

Adjustments to the EITI reconciliation scope

Each year the number of companies assessed as in-scope changes as new companies slip above or below the threshold of £86,000 or companies’ merge. In 2019 the reconciliation was adjusted slightly during the reconciliation exercise as more information on the extractive nature and materiality of payments emerged and we believe that we have captured all material financial flows. The changes are detailed as follows:

Table 3: Adjustments to the EITI reconciliation scope

Oil & Gas sector

Six companies were added to the reconciliation scope when it was realised that their payments/repayments made to HMRC exceeding £86,000 for the calendar year 2019. One company was added to the reconciliation scope when it was realised that its payments/repayments made to CES exceeding £86,000 for the calendar year 2019. One company decided to participate voluntarily in the EITI reporting process. 

Seven companies that were initially sent reporting templates were subsequently excluded from the reconciliation process because as part of the reconciliation exercise it emerged that they made/received no material payments/repayments during the calendar year 2019. Two companies were acquired by another in-scope company that submitted a combined reporting template. Accordingly, this reduced the number of in-scope companies by two.
One company declined to participate in the reconciliation process.

Mining & Quarrying sector

Three companies were added to the reconciliation scope when it was realised that their payments/repayments made to HMRC exceeding £86,000 for the calendar year 2019. Two companies declined to participate in the reconciliation process. The final number of companies (both oil and gas and mining and quarrying) included in the EITI reconciliation scope was therefore 54.

Data collection

Three potentially in-scope companies chose not to submit returns, one oil & gas company and two mining companies. As the total amount reported by government and extractive companies subject to the reconciliation constitutes more than 99% of the total reported by government agencies, the overall reconciliation outcome is substantial and satisfactory.

Table 5: Other mining & quarrying companies

This table reports, in alphabetical order, the mining and quarrying companies that participated in the 2019 process and provides a breakdown of their total corporation tax payments and receipts and their total payments made to TCE: there were no payments by these companies to CES.

(a) Including the payments made by Kendall Bros (Portsmouth) Ltd
(b) Including the payments made by Saint-Gobain Construction Products UK Limited

There were additional, relatively minor, payments reported by the relevant government agencies for companies that were in scope but whose payments were below the agreed materiality thresholds and for in-scope companies that did not participate in the reconciliation process. The totals of such payments are reported in the summary tables above and, for petroleum licence fees and the OGA Levy, are included in the online disclosure of project level payments and repayments at https://www.ukeiti.org/publication/uk-eiti-payments-report-2019, which also includes reconciled field level data on Petroleum Revenue Tax and some project-level payments to TCE and CES. .

Separate to the UK EITI payment reconciliation exercise and complementing the information in this report, a number of companies have reported their 2019 payments to governments around the world, including to UK government entities, under the EU Accounting and Transparency Directives. There can be differences in the amounts reported under UK EITI and under the EU Accounting and Transparency Directives. These differences can relate to interpretation of the scope of payment categories, reporting currency and timing. The Natural Resource Governance Institute maintains a database of Payments to Governments reports submitted by companies under EU/EEA and equivalent Canadian legislation. [2]