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FOSSIL FUELS

Analysing oil-production subsidies

Understanding how subsidies affect fossil-fuel investment returns and production is crucial to commencing new reforms. New analysis on the impact of subsidies on US crude-oil producers finds that, at recent oil prices of around US$50 per barrel, tax preferences and other subsidies push nearly half of new oil investments into profitability.

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Fig. 1: Total OECD government support to producers of fossil fuels.

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Acknowledgements

The views expressed herein are the author’s alone and do not necessarily represent those of the OECD or of its member countries.

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Correspondence to Ronald Steenblik.

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Steenblik, R. Analysing oil-production subsidies. Nat Energy 2, 838–839 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-017-0027-6

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