Category Archives: Offshore

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) has reached a tentative settlement with the Communications Workers of America over the 20,000 people the telecom employs in its Southwest region. Among the concessions AT&T made was that it would bring back 3,000 jobs, most are which are overseas.

The Communications Workers of America announced that its:

District 6 bargaining committee has reached a tentative agreement with AT&T Southwest, District 6 Vice President Claude Cummings reported.

The tentative four-year settlement provides for pay raises, paid parental leave, affordable healthcare and enhanced benefits for the 20,000 AT&T workers in Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas.

A key provision of the proposed settlement commits AT&T to bring 3,000 jobs, the majority of which are sourced offshore, into bargaining units in District 6.

This is not the first confrontation, or settlement, AT&T has had with the big union. According to a report last year in Fortune:

A group of some 2,000 workers in AT&Ts Internet business voted to authorize a strike as their contract expired last week, though no strike has been called and talks are continuing between representatives of the Communications Workers of America union and the company. And members in a larger, 15,000 member unit covering traditional telephone service workers in California and Nevada, also represented by the CWA, have been picketing AT&T events as negotiations over their next contract drag on.

Shortly thereafter, AT&T and the union reached an agreement. However, going forward, the relationship between the two organizations is hardly friendly.

By Douglas A. McIntyre

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AT&T to Bring Back 3000 Offshore Jobs - 24/7 Wall St.

Forbes

You Can't Have Offshore Wind Power Without Oil Forbes The Block Island Wind farm's launch late last year signified the United States' official entry into the offshore wind industry. And while European countries have been generating electricity by spinning turbines offshore since 1991, the US is eager to ... Regulators Updated on 1st US Offshore Wind Farm OperationsU.S. News & World Report OC offshore meteorological tower step toward wind farmDelmarva Daily Times all 9 news articles »

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You Can't Have Offshore Wind Power Without Oil - Forbes

NARRAGANSETT Frequent storms and sea-level rise will make beach replenishment increasingly necessary in southern Rhode Island, and there is more than enough offshore sand to do the job.

Bryan Oakley, an assistant professor of geology at Eastern Connecticut State University who monitors beach erosion, and URI oceanographer John King, who located the sand deposits, presented their findings at the University of Rhode Islands Narragansett Bay campus on Feb. 28 as part of Sea Grants Coastal State discussion series.

Westerlys most dramatic beach restoration was in 2014, after Superstorm Sandy damaged Misquamicut State Beach. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers $3 million restoration effort involved trucking in 84,000 cubic yards of sand from an inland quarry.

From this section: Moratorium on quarries could buy town time

Oakley, who lives in Westerly and tracks changes to the profile of Misquamicut Beach, showed photographs of the beach before, during and after the replenishment of the beach, or berm.

They came in and put 65,000 cubic meters thats 84,000 cubic yards of sand, he said. It cost $3.1 million from glacial upland material .... After replenishment, one of my students said it looked a lot like a highway, not a bad description of it, about as soft as macadam if you were trying to sit on it that first spring.

Oakley said he wanted to see how long the new sand would remain on the beach, so he and his students mapped the area using a global positioning system. They created a model that showed that 39 percent of the sand had been washed away less than a year after the project was completed.

Thats actually not bad, Oakley said. Weve also had no major storms, and since January we havent been out. Well be back out in a couple of weeks, and were looking at some other techniques to get detailed pictures of sections of the beach and see if we can get a handle on some of the offshore distribution as well.

At $36 a cubic yard, upland sand is considerably more expensive than sand dredged from the ocean bottom, which costs $15. Oakley said the benefits of supporting a vital sector of the Rhode Island economy outweighed the expense of replenishment if those costs were kept low. Its economically practical when your rates are relatively low and the economic benefits are high, he said.

In comparison with states like New Jersey, the southern Rhode Island coast is relatively undeveloped, so beach replenishment here is less frequent.

If you think about the stretch from Watch Hill to Point Judith, weve got several large sections of undeveloped barrier beach, Oakley said. Quonochontaug, East Beach, Moonstone thats a great resource, and we should be happy we dont have this level of development that warrants running out and spending millions of dollars to dump a lot of sand on the beach.

Offshore deposits

King warned that sea-level rise would eventually render discussions of beach replenishment irrelevant. You kind of have to put this in the context of were in the midst of a slow-moving disaster of a magnitude weve never seen before due to global climate change, he said. And Im a climate scientist. So when these folks start talking about OK, were going to stop the ocean, I just say, Yeah, sure you are. You may slow it down for a while, but youre not going to stop it.

With funding from the federal Bureau of Energy Management, King mapped sections of the ocean floor in federal waters just outside Rhode Islands 3-mile limit. The goal of the project was to find a source of sand that would be large enough to be used for extensive beach replenishment initiatives.

With beach replenishment, you either go big or go home, he said.

Kings team first used sonar to determine the composition of the ocean bottom and the thickness of the sand deposits. They also took samples of the bottom to determine the quality of the sand. The upland sand used in the Misquamicut replenishment was coarser than natural beach sand and did not match the texture of the existing beach.

When youre doing this kind of thing, you not only need to know if its sand, you need to know if its high-quality sand, he said. King said he knew from looking at geological data that the best sand would likely be found off the coast near Charlestown, where it had been deposited when the glaciers retreated 20,000 years ago.

We sort of zeroed in on this area along the south coast, he said. Theres a thing called the Charlestown moraine, its like a long pillow, which is actually a glacial terminal moraine a big pile of material that builds up in front of an ice sheet.

In front of the terminal moraine was a huge lake, which was created by a dam made by the ice sheet and the moraine behind it.

So you had a very, very big glacial lake, and streams coming off of this ice sheet into the lake, forming big deltaic deposits. So these loaves of material are deltas that were actually debris coming from the melting ice sheet, sometimes underneath, a little bit over the top, carrying a lot of sand and gravel, he said.

Kings team decided to take a closer look at the sand and gravel deltas and created profiles of what are known as glaciodeltaic deposits, and they are huge. The newly mapped deposits are estimated to contain approximately 160 million cubic meters, or 209,272,099 cubic yards, of sand.

We have an order of magnitude more sand out there than we need anytime soon, King said.

The next phase of the project will involve a Special Area Management Plan of the areas where promising deposits have been found to determine the effects that mining the sand might have on the marine ecosystem.

The question is, can you go out there and remove 5 to 10 feet of this material without having a really devastating impact to the bottom, and thats a question we dont have an answer to yet, King said. Thats where the SAMP approach comes in. At some point, we have to talk about what are the impacts to habitat.

cdrummond@thewesterlysun.com

@CynthiaDrummon4

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Offshore sand could help replenish beaches - The Westerly Sun

Once a scenario has been simulated, contractors can project the right cost, depreciation and value in an upcoming contract before the rig move process begins. Being able to see the impact of moving a rig from one company to another is a benefit of accurate forecasting you get from a single end-to-end, fully integrated solution. The ability to forecast in this manner saves time and money for drilling contractors, critical in the oil and gas industry - now more than ever.

Once a rig move has begun, drilling contractors require visibility over vast data sets - accounting currencies, work orders, maintenance transactions and more. During the move, management also need to monitor the environmental impact, cost of operations, support for quality assurance and health & safety management.

Unfortunately, many drilling contractors still struggle with their disjointed and unintegrated solutions. None of their existing systems are comprehensive or agile enough to fully map the diverse requirements, processes and extra transactions required on a rig during a move. By bringing together all these data streams into a single solution, drilling contractors can reap the benefits of analyzing large amounts of real-time information - presenting an accurate picture of events and enabling well-informed decision making during the move.

Having access to a rigs complete maintenance history in one solution enables traceability, but also guarantees compliance. The global oil and gas environment demands a solution which can quickly adapt to compliance regulations to reduce non-compliance risk. Rig move solutions must enable full visibility into IFRS, US GAAP and SOX compliance as well as efficient risk management and environmental impact. Because the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has divided the sea into zones with different legal status and applicable law, and other rules may apply in territorial waters within 12 nautical miles of a coast, rigs crossing these jurisdictions may need to conform to different rules. Rig move must also take into account differing regulations for the asset itself, including the number of lifeboats, fire and gas detection systems, number of individuals allowed to sleep in a single cabin and other criteria.

From beginning to end, manual transactions pose significant risk to rig moves - causing inaccuracy, delays and spiralling costs. If a drilling contractor begins a rig move with fragmented systems, there is a risk the finance department will see an inaccurate picture of how the move has taken place.

Fragmented systems handling rig move processes may mean it takes the finance department months to recognize a rig has been moved to a new location. This lack of visibility and delay of information sharing significantly hinders operations, while backtracking to correct data creates unnecessary overhead costs. A solution lacking in integration may also result in rigs are moved from one locale to the next without being reconfigured to account for different regulatory regimes, placing the organization at risk of fines and recertification.

The right enterprise software can extract necessary data and then alert users of what objects need to be cancelled, closed and/or transferred from projects to conduct compliant and well-documented rig moves. This functionality enables a much more cohesive transfer of data, improves documentation for finance, optimizes processes and reduces error postings, manual corrections and overall transactions.

Real-time visibility, optimized solution processes and accurate forecasting bring real value to drilling contractors during mission-critical rig moves. These benefits directly contribute to industry efforts to reduce overheads and cut unnecessary costs.

For some organizations, adapting to the challenges of a rig move in the transforming oil and gas market may be intimidating. With the support of solutions designed to maximize operations, compliance and the bottom line, offshore drillers can make inefficient rig moves a thing of the past.

Patrick Zirnhelt is aVice President with heavy involvement in Enterprise Service & Asset Management at IFS North America.

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Time For Change: Meeting The Challenge Of Offshore Rig Moves - Manufacturing.net (blog)

Reacting to a CBC/Radio-Canada investigation into offshore tax dodges, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has vowed to do a "better job of getting tax avoiders and tax frauders."

The fifth estate, in a joint investigation with Radio-Canada's Enqute, revealed the names of several wealthy Canadians who appear to be linked to shell companies set up by KPMG in the tiny tax haven of the Isle of Man.

Canadians who bought into the tax scheme declared they were "gifting" their money to an offshore jurisdiction. The money would be invested and any returns would be "gifted" back. Because these returns were so-called gifts, it would all be tax-free.

KPMG has consistently insisted that this "Offshore Company Structure," as they called it, complied with Canadian laws

Documents obtained by the fifth estate and Enqute show 21 "high net worth" Canadian families signed up for the massive tax dodge from 1999 until 2012 when it was first detected by CRA auditors.

During an event in Vancouver on Friday, Trudeau was asked if he would reopen a parliamentary finance committee's inquiry into the KPMG scheme "inlight of these new allegations."

The prime minister avoided referencing KPMG directly, saying "it is absolutely unacceptable that there be people not paying their fair share of taxes."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, shown in Vancouver on Friday, says his government has put $440 million into the Canada Revenue Agency to 'to ensure we are doing a better job of going out and getting tax avoiders and tax frauders.' (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)

Trudeau said his government has put $440 million into the Canada Revenue Agency to "to ensure we are doing a better job of going out and getting tax avoiders and tax frauders."

"That's something we're going to continue to do," he said. "We know that there is always more work to do, but it's something we continue to take very, very seriously.

"We know Canadians want to make sure that people are paying their fair share of taxes."

Meanwhile, the NDP is calling for an investigation to uncover the full extent of the KPMG affair.

"The Liberal government must conduct a thorough investigation into this scheme and commit to ending these secret, penalty-free amnesty deals for tax evaders," said Pierre-Luc Dusseault, the party's revenue and finance critic.

The KPMG tax dodge first stirred controversy last spring when CBC revealed that the CRA offered a secret sweetheart deal in effect, an amnesty to the accounting firm's clients who had been caught using the scheme.

The offer granted KPMG clients "no penalties" provided they paid back taxes and modest interest.

But Revenue Minister Diane Lebouthillier insisted Friday that legal proceedings have not been abandoned against any clients who used the KPMG scheme, which the CRA has described as a "sham."

"I insist there was no amnesty and there will not be an amnesty," she said.

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KPMG offshore tax dodge: Trudeau vows to do 'better job' with tax avoiders - CBC.ca

New York Times

US Agents Raid Caterpillar Over Offshore Tax Practices New York Times Federal agents raided three Caterpillar buildings near its Illinois headquarters on Thursday, company and law enforcement officials said, in an escalation of an inquiry into the heavy equipment manufacturer's offshore tax practices. Caterpillar has ... Caterpillar Offshore Tax Practices Illegal, FBI Raids Chicago, Illinois HeadquartersiMotorTimes.com all 221 news articles »

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US Agents Raid Caterpillar Over Offshore Tax Practices - New York Times

The New Zealand Government is moving to close loopholes preventing large multinationals from claiming tax breaks which costs the country about $300million a year.

At the International Fiscal Association Conference in Queenstown yesterday, Revenue Minister Judith Collins announced the release of three base erosion and profit-sharing (BEPS) consultation documents, aimed at strengthening New Zealands rules for taxing large offshore companies with a presence in New Zealand.

BEPS is a tax avoidance strategy used by multinationals, where profits are shifted from jurisdictions with high taxes, for example the United States, to jurisdictions which had low taxes, or so-called tax havens.

Mrs Collins told the Otago Daily Times yesterday the new measures were about fairness.

"One of the things that happens is that if youre an offshore company with an office in New Zealand ... they load on to the New Zealand company a lot of the cost of head office or ... they charge the New Zealand office for things, like very high interest rates," she said.

"They put a lot on the business in New Zealand.

"Profits they make in New Zealand are significantly reduced for tax purposes [and] profit is shifted offshore.

"Certainly, an amount of manipulation is allowed [but] were closing that loophole. Its just about fairness.Salary earners dont get a chance to do that, so why should anyone else?"

Included in the proposals was a new anti-avoidance rule to apply to large multinationals which structured to avoid having a permanent taxable, presence in New Zealand.

A large multinational is considered a company with a global turnover of more than 750million ($NZ1.21billion).

There were also plans to update existing transfer pricing legislation to align with OECDs new guidelines and Australias rules, as well as several administrative measures aimed at helping Inland Revenue (IRD) assess and collect the right amount of tax.

Those measures would generally only apply to large multinationals which refused to co-operate with the IRD and would make it possible for IRD to assess the companies based on the information the department has at the time.

That would also require tax to be paid earlier in the disputes process and allow IRD to collect relevant information held offshore.

"The proposed measures will also contain remedies for Inland Revenue where the non-resident does not co-operate, such as increased penalties and a power to allocate income to New Zealand in the absence of information to the contrary," Mrs Collins said.

"If the IRD does its job properly, we have money for hospitals ... schools ... the things people expect [the] Government to provide."

New Zealand was not trying to be a world leader with the "quite strong, but measured" proposals.

"Were a very open economy, we rely on exports to survive, we need foreign capital as well.

"We need to not send out a message [that] we dont want multinationals.

"Were happy to have you as long as you pay your fair share of New Zealand-earned tax.

"Just because were nice, friendly little Kiwis, were not stupid."

She expected legislation to be shored up and coming to parliament by mid-year once it became law it would be much more difficult for multinationals to find loopholes.

"Whatever measures we put in place there will be some very clever people in the world who will be hell-bent to get around this."

tracey.roxburgh@odt.co.nz

Three consultation papers proposing new measures to strengthen New Zealands rules for taxing large multinationals were released yesterday.

They contain proposals for:

Tackling concerns about multinationals booking profits from their New Zealand sales offshore, even though their sales are driven by New Zealand staff.

Preventing multinationals using interest payments to shift profits offshore.

Implementing New Zealands entrance into an international convention for aligning our double tax agreements with OECD recommendations.

Submissions on the implementing the international convention are open until April 7, and submissions on the other two documents are open until April 18. Ministers will consider final proposals later this year.

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Offshore tax loophole to be closed - Otago Daily Times

Helicopter Lessor Waypoint Sees Offshore Sector Bouncing Back Aviation International News Rotorcraft leasing group Waypoint sees improved demand from the offshore oil-and-gas-support sector, which has been a weak point in the helicopter market for the past three or four years. According to Waypoint CEO Ed Washecka, business confidence in ... and more »

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Helicopter Lessor Waypoint Sees Offshore Sector Bouncing Back - Aviation International News

3/3/2017

STAVANGER, Norway -- Repsol Norge AS is the operator for production license 705 in the Norwegian Sea.

The Petroleum Safety Authority Norway (PSA) has given Repsol consent to drill exploration well 6705/7-1 in a prospect named Stordal.

The well's geographical coordinates will be:

67 15' 05.14" N 05 10' 29.12" E

The drilling site is in the deep-water section of the Norwegian Sea, around 395 km west of Bod. Water depth at the site is 1,410 m.

Drilling is scheduled to start in early March and to last 33 days, or 48 days if a discovery is made.

The well is to be drilled by Transocean Spitsbergen, which is a semisubmersible drilling facility of the Aker H-6e type, owned and operated by Transocean Offshore Ltd. It was built at the Aker Stord yard in 2009, is registered in the Marshall Islands and classified by DNV GL. Transocean Spitsbergen received a new Acknowledgement of Compliance from the PSA in November 2012 following a change of ownership.

Link:

Repsol receives consent for exploration drilling offshore Norway - WorldOil (subscription)

A former client of the accounting giant KPMG says a tax dodge that involved wealthy people gifting their money to an offshore jurisdiction was a "facade" designed to hide money from the taxman.

The client, who spoke to CBC's the fifth estate and Radio-Canada's Enqute on the condition of anonymity, says KPMG made him sign a confidentiality agreement that prevents him from speaking publicly about the tax dodge.

In an exclusive interview to be aired Friday on the fifth estate documentary "The Untouchables," the former client says KPMG insisted on secrecy when it was promoting the tax avoidance scheme to wealthy Canadians as far back as 1999.

Documents obtained by the fifth estate and Enqute show 21 "high net worth" Canadian families signed up for the massive tax dodge from 1999 until 2012 when it was first detected by CRA auditors a scheme that deprived the federal treasury of tens of millions.

The KPMG tax dodge stirred controversy last spring when it was revealed the Canada Revenue Agency offered a secret amnesty to the accounting firm's clients who had been caught using the scheme.

The amnesty offer, leaked to CBC News in a brown envelope, granted KPMG clients "no penalties" as long as they paid back taxes and modest interest.

As a condition of the May 2015 amnesty offer, the CRA itself demanded that KPMG clients not talk about it in public.

Until now, no KPMG client has spoken out about their role in the scheme.

The client says the tax dodge was based on a simple if fictitious idea that "high net worth" clients give away their fortunes to an Isle of Man shell company. The money would be invested offshore and would be returned back to Canada, again untaxed, also as a so-called gift.

"So basically, I escaped the entire tax circle," the ex-client said.

Today, the client, who paid KPMG $100,000 to set up the Isle of Man tax dodge, says the "gift" was pure "fiction" and that, in reality, he never gave anything away.

"I still have absolute control over my money," he said. "The rest was just a facade... Everything else, every bit of piece of paper, everything is window dressing to create the appearance of 'I don't have control over this,' but in fact I do."

He says KPMG told those involved to keep quiet about their involvement.

"They're just going to keep their lips shut tight," he said. "How's Canada Revenue Agency going to detect it?"

In a written statement to the fifth estate, KPMG says it "emphatically" disputes the ex-client's claim.

KPMG says its offshore structure complied with "all laws" in Canada and was carefully reviewed by senior executives at the firm before it went ahead.

"Clients were explicitly told that they were giving up control of the assets," KPMG said. "To our knowledge, no member of KPMG would or did provide any advice or instruction to the contrary."

As a condition of the May 2015 amnesty offer, the Canada Revenue Agency demanded that KPMG clients not talk about it in public. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

Still, the former client insists that's exactly what he was told, in private.

"Nobody gives away $20 million to an Isle of Man company and says: 'Hey, I busted my ass for 20 years to make it, but you know what, I'm feeling generous today so you can have it all, no strings attached.' I don't think so, not for a 100 grand cheque that you just wrote to KPMG."

In court documents, the Canada Revenue Agency has also alleged that the KPMG scheme was a "sham" that "intended to deceive" the federal treasury.

the fifth estate/Enqute investigation also looks at how much money KPMG made from its tax scheme.

The accounting giant is coming under scrutiny for its testimony before the House of Commons finance committee last spring.

The committee, which had begun a probe into why the CRA offered amnesty to those wealthy clients, called KPMG's former global head of tax, Gregory Wiebe, as its first witness.

Gregory Wiebe, former global head of tax for KPMG, testified at the House of Commons finance committee there were 16 'implementations' of the scheme. (Parliament of Canada)

MPs wanted to know exactly how much money KPMG itself made from running the offshore tax dodge.

Wiebe testified that the "total revenue" that KPMG received from the tax scheme was a $100,000 start up fee for each client.

"It was a fixed fee per implementation, it was not a contingent fee or whatever," Wiebe told MPs.

In other words, the firm did not earn fees based on the taxes dodged by their clients.

However, new records in a Vancouver court action appear to show KPMG made far more money off the scheme than they told the House of Commons committee.

Documents filed in the Tax Court of Canada in January show that one wealthy family stated they paid a yearly fee to KPMG "based on" their "annual tax savings."

In that one case alone,KPMGearned additional annual payments that totalled $300,000 over several years,according to the documents.

In a statement to CBC News, KPMG says those court documents filed in the Vancouver tax court case contain unproven court allegations.

"[KPMG] provided accurate information to the finance committee on this point and on all other points in his testimony."

KPMG may also have understated the number of offshore companies it set up for Canadian multimillionaires and billionaires, according to the fifth estate/Enqute investigation.

Wiebe testified at the finance committee there were 16 "implementations" of the scheme.

However, using search techniques the fifth estate and Enqute developed using the Isle of Man's public registry, journalists found five additional structures set up for wealthy Canadian families.

KPMG now says it did create those five structures, but didn't mention those numbers to the finance committee because those clients "aborted" their involvement in the scheme before they dodged any taxes.

Sherbrooke University tax Prof. MarwahRizqy says KPMG should have included those additional Canadian families in its totals to the finance committee and to the Canada Revenue Agency.

"It's very important to disclose that type of information," Rizqy said. "Here we're talking about a tax structure, about the intention to evade tax. The CRA can go and investigate these families and see if they actually did something else."

Marwah Rizqy, a tax professor at Sherbrooke University, says KPMG should have disclosed the five additional tax structures to authorities. (CBC)

Rizqy says KPMG's testimony before the committee is concerning.

"There's a lack of credibility here," Rizqy said. "They misled the Parliament, they also misled Canadians."

The inquiry was abruptly halted last June after KPMG lawyers sent a letter to MPs on the finance committee.

Lawyers for the accounting firm complained that it would be "fundamentally unfair and improper" for the inquiry to hear from tax experts critical of the offshore scheme amid ongoing court cases.

Critics pointed out that KPMG only sent the letter to the finance committee after its former head of global tax, Wiebe, had already given his side of the story.

Rizqy, who has reviewed internal KPMG and other court documents in the Isle of Man scheme, questions why the federal government continues to do business with KPMG in light of the revelations.

The firm was brought in to audit the F-35 fighter jet spending, as well as Senate travel expenses, for example.

In 2016, the federal government gave KPMG at least $9 million in contracts, according to Public Services and Procurement Canada. During the previousgovernment, KPMG was given more than $80 million in government contracts.

"It doesn't make any sense," Rizqy said. "I mean if on one hand we know that you're promoting tax shelters, you should be banned to be part of any public contract. I think it's the time to ask KPMG to step aside from every public contract."

Rizqy who is in the running to be a candidate for the Liberal Party in an upcoming federal byelection in Quebec does not shy away from criticizing Ottawa's handling of the KPMG affair.

She is recommending the Liberal government call a full-scale inquiry into the KPMG revelations, including the secret amnesty deal it negotiated with the CRA for its wealthy clients.

"I think this is the time to conduct a real investigation about KPMG, about the deal, about the tax structure."

Link:

KPMG offshore tax dodge a 'facade' designed to hide money, ex-client says - CBC.ca