OPEC fears Copenhagen tax on oil and gas

 
13-member cartel seeks to ensure that its interests properly represented in post-Kyoto agreement.

 
ALGIERS - Top oil-producing countries fear that the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen next month could levy new taxes on the oil and gas industries, Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil was quoted as saying on Sunday.

Khelil told the Algerian APS news agency that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a 13-member cartel of oil-rich nations, are worried any new taxes agreed in the Danish capital could have "a negative impact on their economies."

Khelil said OPEC, of which Algeria is a member, would work together to strike a common position ahead of the December conference "in order to protect their interests."

Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, Angola's oil minister and current OPEC president, vowed last month that the world's major oil producers would resist any move that would punish their industries.

"Oil producers must ensure that their interests are properly represented in the post-Kyoto agreement," he told an OPEC summit in Vienna.

In Copenhagen, world leaders will try to seal a new accord to fight climate change after the Kyoto Protocol requirements expire in 2012.

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