By Yemisi Izuora-Lagos
Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke has been elected the President of the Ministerial Meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) in Doha, Qatar.
This lection is coming barely two weeks after she was elected the President Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna, Austria.
The meeting of GECF, an equivalent of OPEC, was attended by ministers from Algeria, Iran, Libya, Qatar, Russia and United Arab Emirate, while the Heads of Delegations from Bolivia, Equatorial Guinea, Egypt, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela were observers.
Alison-Madueke, who, until then, was the Alternate President, was however absent at the meeting, but Nigeria’s Ambassador to Qatar, Ambassador Shuaibu Ahmed and the Group Executive Director in charge of Gas and Power at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. David Ige, were in attendance.
Speaking to journalists at the end of the meeting, the Minister of Energy and Industry of Qatar, Dr. Mohammed Saleh Al Sada, said the organisation noted that the global gas demand was increasing, while it is decreasing in Europe due to the weak economy and policy measures.
“However, the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) trade is increasing and is taking a greater share of global gas trade. The ministers decided to start the preparations for the Third Gas Summit in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran in 2015,” he said.
GECF, which will hold its 17th ministerial meeting in Abuja in 2015, is a gathering of the world’s leading gas producers, being forced by the falling crude oil prices to strengthen the 15- year- old forum to build a mechanism for stability and security of supply and demand for gas.
The forum had its inaugural session in Tehran, Iran, which was attended by governments of Algeria, Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Turkmenistan and Norway in May, 2001.
A few years later, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, as well as Iraq, and with the Netherlands as observer joined the forum.