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2nd Gas Exporting Countries Forum due in Russia in 2013

The second summit of the participants in the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) will be held in Russia next year

MOSCOW, November 22 (Itar-Tass) —— The second summit of the participants in the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) will be held in Russia next year, says the report of the Russian Ministry of Energy issued after the GECF ministerial meeting that Alexander Novak, the ministry’s head, attended.

The main challenges for the contemporary gas market and the latest changes in gas prospecting, extraction and sales in the world were discussed in detail at the meeting in Malibu, Equatorial Guinea, on November 21.

Prospects for the development of international gas markets and the long-term strategy of the Forum were also discussed. The organization’s budget for 2013 was adopted and Iraq’s joining the GECF as an observer was endorsed. Proposals were made to set up a gas bank and a gas research institute under the Forum’s aegis. The participants in the GECF will analyze the expediency of this step at the next ministerial meeting.

The Gas Exporting Countries Forum is an organization set up to coordinate actions of the world’s leading natural gas producers. The Forum was instituted in Moscow on December 23, 2008. October 1, 2009 is regarded as the day of the organization’s foundation. It was the day the intergovernmental agreement went into force after being ratified by the five countries that signed the document. The Forum is now made up of Algeria, Bolivia, Venezuela, Egypt, Iran, Qatar, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Equatorial Guinea. Observer countries are Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Norway.

The first GECF summit was held in Doha, Qatar, the venue of the organization’s headquarters, on November 15, 2011. The declaration of the heads of state and government was adopted. It says effort should continue for steady supply of natural gas on the world market and ensuring fair prices of natural gas and oil, taking into account the prices’ indexation. The declaration, on the participants’ proposal, contains the provision that countries over whose territories energy sources go by transit are responsible for creating stable and good conditions for transit.