Madrid - The World Petroleum Council on Thursday stressed the importance of ethical values as one of the main challenges facing the energy business.

Decision-making in the oil industry needed to be linked with "ethical values, legal compliance and respect for people, communities and the environment," World Petroleum Council president Randall Gossen said in Madrid.

Gossen was speaking at the close of the World Petroleum Congress, described as the Olympics of the oil industry, which brought thousands of experts from some 60 countries, including more than 35 ministers, to the Spanish capital this week.

Companies needed to heed issues such as transparency and human rights because "it is the right thing to do" and because it helped them secure a stable operating environment, Gossen said.

"Companies not adopting green principles and principles of corporate social responsibility do so at their own peril," he cautioned.

Other challenges facing the oil industry included guaranteeing the availability of supplies, which entailed developing new technologies and improving energy efficiency, Gossen explained.

Reducing carbon dioxide emissions, a scarcity of skilled workers in the field of energy and a new era in the gas industry were other issues, he said.

The World Petroleum Congress is staged every three years by the World Petroleum Council, a body whose 60 member countries represent about 90 per cent of the world's oil and gas consumption. (dpa)