Thames Water

That is my understanding, happy for anyone to provide a cite suggesting otherwise.

Not just taxes. Equinor, formerly Statoil is a nationalised industry. Whether government income is by taxes or profits it doesn't really matter.

On 01/07/2023 12:30, Fredxx wrote: <snip>

I did a bit of oil-related work in the 1970s so know it weren't like that. Have a look at

"In the early days, foreign companies dominated exploration activities, and they were responsible for developing the first oil and gas fields. Norwegian participation gradually increased as Norsk Hydro became involved. Saga Petroleum, a private Norwegian company, was established in 1972. Statoil (now Equinor) was also established in 1972, with the Norwegian state as sole owner. Norway also established the principle that the state was to have a 50 per cent ownership interest in every production licence."

NB "This site is run in cooperation by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate."

Thanks for the cite. I thought Statoil was a monopoly, so assume they must have bought up the rights from the other companies?

Or do they continue to only own 50% of the rights to the revenue?

I've read the article you've mentioned and it seems that Statoil/Equinor is a state owned company as per:

But you forget that water charges are going to go up by 40% next year to pay for the future repair and investment liabilities.

Presuambly a reserve may be built up out of profits, to cover such as a dry summer which will have costs such as providing standpipes or bottled water to communities, plus extra repair bills due to dry ground fracturing pipes and then the same again when it eventually rains and the ground moves again. What do water company profits tend to be, as a %-age of revenue?

Yes, that's the current and/or savings account at the bank, having already had Corporation Tax paid on it.

As to your last question, their accountants' question would be 'how much do you want it to be?'. No, I haven't looked, but it will be on public record. A typical business would want gross profit to be 30-40%, with net profit varying with the line of business. Some businesses run on very thin profit margins of two or three percent, but that's where there is lots of competition and a large turnover.

There was a time when share prices did not shoot up practically every year, when people owned shares for their dividends, which needed to be competitive with other kinds of return on capital.

No such animal.

No such animal.

Fantasy

Robin snipped-for-privacy@outlook.com wrote

But never had a clue about how Norway did things exploration wise, let alone how what is now Statoil got started.

Corse it was initially.

Pity about

Yes it basically was.

Nope, there were no such rights. The private operations were nationalised.

There are no such rights.

The norwegian govt is no longer the sole shareholder in Equinor which is what Statoil became.

That doesnt say that.

Because its a listed public company with the govt with a 67% shareholding, as wiki says, But thats all irrelevant to the original ignorant claim that there was only ever private companys involved in the original oil and gas exploration and developement of north sea oil and gas.

And as wiki says, Equinor is involved in a hell of a lot more than just north sea oil and gas world wide.

And that is the reason that Norway's immense sovereign wealth fund is now available for anything the govt wants to spend it on. An absolutely classic example of what socialism done right can achieve.

Doesnt happen. The water still has to come from somewhere.

Doesnt happen in britain due to a dry summer.

You do sometimes see water trucked in to small commiunities which only have the one important reservoir that ends up dry,

Doesnt happen either.

Doesnt happen either.

It was exactly the same in Norway, but they had the advantage of going from a quite poor (and indebted) fishing /rural economy (with none of the massive legacy rust-belt industries that we had) to a bonanza of money. They certainly didn't and could never have developed their own oil industry without outside investment.

This is why they have a ginormous sovereign wealth fund, and we don't. We spent much of ours (after the Americans had their risk capital returns) reforming all the clapped out, union-infested, overmanned nationalised industries.

They were pretty well bankrupt before Oil was discovered in their sector. In 1990 I was on holiday in New Zealand and met a couple of female SAS (airline!) employees. I remember having this conversation with them and one, in her mid to late 30's said that she grew up in rural Norway and her parents were so poor they could not afford to buy her proper shoes when she needed them for school.

BULLSHIT

The norwegian economy was always about much more than that.

That's bullshit too.

Because they had the sense to have the govt do their oil and gas operations and most of their electricity generation.

You are just plain wrong about that.

That's because they had the govt do their oil and gas and most of their electricity generation, instead of leaving that to private industry and so could pocket the profits into that ginormous sovereign wealth fund and still do.

We spent much of ours

BULLSHIT

Says nothing useful about the norwegian economy at that time.

Both of these happened last year, Rodney.

But TW managed another source of dividends - money borrowed against assets. Dividends outstripped profits many fold throughout privatisation.

So while an attractive source of investment (especially if you had a bit of insider insight) debt racked up to the point it became no longer viable. Which is where we are.

A touch more regulatory oversight will not fix this for TW, or the privatised untilities in general.