North Sea Oil Groups See Tax Exemption on New Fields, Times Says

U.K. Treasury officials are in talks with North Sea oil and gas producers to try to avoid having a new windfall tax lead the producers to abandon plans for new fields, the London-based Times reported without saying where it got the information.

The producers are showing growing optimism that an Energy and Climate Change Committee hearing tomorrow will be told that new fields will be exempt from the tax, the newspaper said.