George Osborne MP has moved to raise £2 billion in additional revenue from North Sea oil producers with the introduction of a new tax.

The Fair Fuel Stabiliser tax is to be a supplementary charge on oil producers which will increase the tax paid on oil and gas production from 20 per cent to 32 per cent.

Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, said this was more than fair given the extraordinary rise in the price of oil over the past five years.

He explained, ‘The North Sea Oil tax regime was most recently changed in 2006, when the price of oil stood at US $66. It is now almost double that amount.

‘That means the oil companies are making unexpected profits on oil prices that are far higher than those they based their investment decisions on.

'Other oil-producing countries have a tax regime that automatically regulates returns when prices rise. We do not – and the North Sea is too mature to introduce such a regime now. Instead, we can do something else.’

The money raised from the new Fair Fuel tax has been used to delay the inflationary rise in fuel duty that was planned for next week until 2012.

The following rise, originally due in 2012, will now be postponed until 2013.

Osborne said he did not want investment in the North Sea to be lost entirely, so promised oil producers that if the oil price sustains a fall below US $75, the tax would be reduced.