Washington, 10 November (Argus) — The oil and gas industry can declare an early victory in convincing Republican tax writers to leave their prized deductions mostly untouched in tax bills being considered in both chambers of the US Congress.

The US Senate yesterday unveiled its version of a tax overhaul that would spare all energy-specific tax deductions, although industry executives will be disappointed with the proposal's to delay a 15 percentage point reduction in corporate tax rates by a full year, until 2019.

But the Senate bill, unlike the House version, preserves tax credits for marginal wells and enhanced oil recovery that are worth about $200mn over the next decade. And both plans keep a far more lucrative deduction, a break for "intangible drilling costs" that is worth about $11bn over the same time period.

Oil and gas companies had looked at the prospects of the first overhaul to the tax code in 30 years with some trepidation, fearing an overall corporate rate drop would come at the expense of the breaks that industry officials say are critical inducements to domestic drilling. US oil and gas industry group the American Petroleum Institute spent $7.4mn on lobbying in the first three quarters of 2017, compared with $5.3mn over the same period in 2016, to help make its case on Capitol Hill that repealing the subsidies would jeopardize President Donald Trump's push for "energy dominance."

The Senate bill would still seek to permanently cut corporate tax rates to 20pc from 35pc, aligning with a tax package Republicans in the US House of Representatives moved out of committee yesterday. The Senate version would delay lower corporate rates by a year to keep the 10-year cost of the tax package below a $1.5 trillion cap.