Oil And Gas Explorers News

Greece is planning to cut tax rates for oil and gas companies as it wants to attract them to help exploit its untapped offshore hydrocarbon resources, its energy minister said on Tuesday. Under the plan, oil and gas explorers will pay 25 percent tax, down from 40 percent currently, and 5 percent of the tax will go to local communities. "We have done this in order to incentivize our investors to invest in the future of Greece," Ioannis Maniatis, Greece's Energy Minister, said at a conference in London. He did not say when the new tax rates would come into effect.

Reutrs - Australian marine logistics firm Mermaid Marine Australia Ltd. said on Tuesday it had agreed to buy the offshore businesses of Singapore's Jaya Holdings Ltd. for $495.96 million in cash to expand its international portfolio. Mermaid Marine, a Perth-based company which provides vessel and supply base services to offshore oil and gas explorers, will expand its scale in the Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern markets through the acquisition, the company said in a statement. The acquired businesses include 27 vessels currently operating in South East Asia, the Middle East and East and West Africa, two shipyards in Indonesia and Singapore, and a new build pipeline of six vessels for delivery by 2015.