Ineos and Shell are teaming up to explore new oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico, as Ineos warns it will continue to favour US investment over the UK without policy changes.
The partners will target opportunities near Shell’s Appomattox platform offshore Louisiana, following Ineos’s acquisition of a 21% stake in the asset last year. Plans include developing the Fort Sumter discovery and drilling a further exploration well before 2030.
Ineos entered the US market in 2023 with a $1.4bn deal for shale assets in Texas and says the stable environment there underpins its strategy.
David Bucknall, chief executive of Ineos Energy, told The Times: “The fiscal and regulatory environment in the US has been stable for many, many years.”
He contrasted this with the UK, adding: “If you’ve had [inconsistency], as we have had with successive governments, that has created uncertainty and volatility … committing resources to an area like that is quite difficult.”
On future UK investment, he said that without improvement to the fiscal regime, it would be "quite hard to see us making large bets on the UK".
The UK Government said its fiscal framework supports stability and investment, highlighting £120bn in infrastructure funding and falling borrowing levels.
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