Egypt opposed to "gas OPEC"
9/4/2007 15:46
Egyptian Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmi said yesterday that Egypt is
opposed to the idea of establishing an OPEC-style cartel ("gas OPEC") for gas
exporting countries, the official MENA news agency reported.
Fahmi made the
remarks in a statement he gave before leaving for Doha to attend the 7th
ministerial conference of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) scheduled for
today.
Fahmi said that Egypt's rejection to the formation of such a cartel is
due to its wish to maintain transparency in international gas markets.
"We
refuse the idea of building a body that controls one of the essential sources of
global energy," he said in the statement.
Earlier, there were media reports
and speculations that the world's largest producers of natural gas, in
particular Russia and Iran, plan to create a gas cartel equivalent to the OPEC
which sets quotas and prices and are due to discuss the issue at the Doha
meeting.
As an organization of world's leading gas producers established in
Tehran in 2001, the GECF doesn't have a fixed membership structure, however
Algeria, Bolivia, Brunei, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Libya,
Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad & Tobago, the UAE and
Venezuela could be identified as current members.
Turkmenistan, Bolivia,
Indonesia, Libya and Oman have participated at different ministerial meetings.
Norway has the status of observer, according to MENA.
Russia, Iran, Qatar,
Algeria and 10 countries at the forum control about 42 percent of world gas
production.
Egypt ranks 8th on the world list of gas exporting countries and
6th on that of liquified gas exporting countries, according to
Fahmi.
Xinhua
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