Oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh is in Doha to attend the 16th Ministerial Meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), ISNA reported.
GECF members will examine the evolution of international gas markets and global prices, as well as activities of the executive council and the forum secretariat.
With a 40 percent decline in global oil prices over the past 6 months, gas prices have also dropped. The fall in oil prices may hurt natural gas exporting countries as gas prices are often tied to oil prices in European and Asian markets.
At the 15th Ministerial Meeting of GECF in Tehran last year, Zanganeh had voiced concern over falling gas prices, saying that “plummeting prices has weakened the economic justification of new gas projects, increasing risks of project implementation and creating uncertainties over stable and long-term gas supplies.”
This is the first meeting chaired by Iran’s Mohammad Hossein Adeli as the secretary-general of the meeting.
The forum is an intergovernmental organization of the world's leading natural gas producers comprising Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, UAE and Venezuela. Kazakhstan, Iraq, the Netherlands and Norway have observer status.
Headquartered in the Qatari capital, the Gas Exporting Countries Forum was initiated by Iran in 2001.The forum was officially established on December 2008 in Moscow, where energy ministers of member states adopted the forum's charter and signed an intergovernmental agreement.
GECF members together hold around 73% of the global gas reserves, produce 42% of global gas, and more than 80 percent of LNG.
