PETROCHINA Co, the nation's biggest oil producer, said the government is studying changes to a windfall tax levied on oil companies after international crude prices surged to record levels.
"The government said the levy would be reconsidered when oil is above US$80 a barrel," PetroChina Chairman Jiang Jiemin said at the firm's annual general meeting in Beijing yesterday. "Now oil is well above US$100 a barrel." China in March 2006 started levying a tax on oil sold over US$40 a barrel. The tax's trigger level is "too low," causing Chinese oil firms to face "heavy" pressures, Hu Weiping, oil and gas director at the National Development and Reform Commission, said last month.