30 C.F.R. § 203.80 When can I get royalty relief if I am not eligible for end-of-life or deep water royalty relief?
Title 30 - Mineral Resources
We may grant royalty relief when it serves the statutory purposes summarized in §203.1, and our formal relief programs provide inadequate encouragement to increase production or development. Unless your lease lies wholly west of 87 degrees, 30 minutes West longitude in the Gulf of Mexico, your lease must be producing to qualify for relief. Before you may apply for royalty relief apart from our end-of-life or deepwater programs, we must agree that your lease or project has two or more of the following characteristics: (a) The lease has produced for a substantial period and the lessee can recover significant additional resources. Significant additional resources means enough to allow production for at least a year more than would be profitable without royalty relief. (b) Valuable facilities (e.g., a platform or pipeline that would be removed upon lease relinquishment) exist that we do not expect a successor lessee to use. If the facilities are located off the lease, their preservation must depend on continued production from the lease applying for royalty relief. We will only consider an allocable share of costs for off-lease facilities in the relief application. (c) A substantial risk exists that no new lessee will recover the resources. (d) The lessee made major efforts to reduce operating costs too recently to use the formal program for royalty relief (e.g., recent significant change in operations). (e) Circumstances beyond the lessee's control, other than water depth, preclude reliance on one of the existing royalty relief programs. [67 FR 1879, Jan. 15, 2002]
Title 30: Mineral Resources
PART 203—RELIEF OR REDUCTION IN ROYALTY RATES
Subpart B—OCS Oil, Gas, and Sulfur General
Royalty Relief For Deep Water Expansion Projects And Pre-Act Deep Water Leases
§ 203.80 When can I get royalty relief if I am not eligible for end-of-life or deep water royalty relief?
