Iran's deputy oil minister for international and commercial affairs departed for South America to invite Latin American members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum to attend the Third GECF Summit scheduled in November in Tehran.
Amirhossein Zamaninia intends to invite Trinidad & Tobago and Bolivia as permanent members of the GECF, and Peru as an observer member, IRNA reported.
The summit will be held on November 23. The second meeting of the High-Level Ad-Hoc Group for the summit is also planned to take place in Tehran in September.
Zamaninia will also submit an invitation to the Netherlands while all other invitations are expected to be sent next week.
The GECF, established in Tehran in 2001, is an intergovernmental organization of 11 of the world's leading natural gas producers, namely Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela. Iraq, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman and Peru have the status of observer members.
GECF members together control over 70% of the world's natural gas reserves, 38% of the pipeline trade and 85% of the liquefied natural gas production. The three largest reserve-holders in the GECF—Iran, Russia and Qatar—together hold about 57% of global gas reserves.
The objectives of the GECF are to foster the concept of mutuality of interests by favoring dialogue between producers, between producers and consumers, and between governments and energy-related industries, and to promote a stable and transparent energy market.
