North Sea oil tax break "an added bonus" Faroe Petroleum and DEO Petroleum revealed today that they now expected to save about £40m between them in tax they would have been prepared to pay. In his Budget, Mr Osborne doubled the tax breaks on small North Sea fields, a move intended to target projects where investment "would not otherwise have happened." But on Thursday both Premier Oil and Valiant Petroleum said they expected to save money on projects that they would have proceeded with, sharing in a windfall worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the sector. DEO and Faroe, which partner in the Perth field, confirmed they too would have gone ahead with their field, regardless of the tax breaks. DEO Petroleum, which expected to save £25m in tax over the lifetime of the field, said: "The new field allowance is really just an added bonus to the company." Graham Stewart, chief executive of Faroe, estimated that, based on DEO's calculation, Faroe could save about £14m on the field. "It was planned to go ahead anyhow, so it's a bit of a windfall," he said. He welcomed the reforms but accused Mr Osborne of not doing enough to encourage exploration. "This tax scheme, great as it may appear on paper, is a bit of a sticking plaster fix," he said. It still misses out on the most important part of the future of the oil and gas industry, which is exploration. Oil rose $1.95 to $125.09 a barrel, on the news Iranian oil exports had fallen 14pc due to sanctions.