TIRANA, Nov. 23 – A Paris-based arbitration court has issued a stop order requiring Albanian tax authorities to revoke the suspension of Bankers Petroleum’s Albanian bank accounts over a tax dispute, the Canada-based oil and gas producer said in a statement on Monday.
The decision came three days after the country’s biggest oil producer and exporter announced it had addressed the ICC International Court of Arbitration over the suspension of its bank accounts in Albania “in an attempt to collect an amount of $75 million, increased due to assessed interest and penalties from the previously announced $57 million tax assessment.”
Last September, Canada-based Bankers Petroleum and the Albanian government reached a deal to hire an international audit firm to settle a dispute over $57 million in claimed taxes by the country’s National Agency for Natural Resources.
While the third-party international cost recovery audit process continues, Bankers says it will continue its Albania operations as usual.
“Based on the strength of our eleven year relationship with the Albanian government as the largest foreign direct investor and tax payer in Albania, we expect full cooperation in compliance with the ICC Tribunal ruling and the third-party international cost recovery audit process,” the company said.
Eleven years after launching its operations in the Patos-Marinze heavy oilfield under a 25-year concession deal with the Albanian government, Bankers Petroleum has not started paying profit tax yet, which under Albanian law companies operating in the oil industry pay at a 50 percent rate only after meeting their investment costs.
Back in April 2015, Bankers Petroleum came under fire after an incident involving the explosion of two oil wells forcing the evacuation of some sixty local households. The Albanian authorities also questioned if the country’s largest foreign investor and exporter has paid all its taxes.
