Qatar, the world's biggest exporter of liquefied natural gas, didn't participate in a scheduled meeting of top gas exporting nations in Egypt's capital Cairo Thursday due to "extraordinary circumstances," the secretary general of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, or GECF, said.
"We have received official information from our Qatari side that because of extraordinary circumstances unfortunately the Qatari official delegation is not capable of attending today's meeting," GECF secretary general Leonid Bokhanovsky told reporters at the meeting.
He denied that Qatar's absence made a mockery of the event, saying "we have more than needed quorum today."
Officials at Qatar's oil ministry couldn't be reached immediately for comment when contacted by Zawya Dow Jones Thursday.
The GECF is a loose coalition of major gas powers. First launched in 2001 and headquartered in Qatar's capital Doha, the forum aims to improve coordination and collaboration between its 11 member countries, which include Iran, Russia, Egypt, Venezuela and Libya.
Qatar is the world's largest producer of LNG by far since last year, with capacity to export as much as 77 million tons of the fuel annually. Over the past decade, the tiny Gulf Arab state has hung its ambitions on developing its mighty gas reserves, the third largest after Russia and Iran.
Egypt's Petroleum Minister Abdullah Ghorab said there was no "political message" behind Qatar's decision to boycott the event. However, a GECF organizer, who declined to be named, said: "Perhaps there is a problem. Maybe it's because of [who is representing] Libya [at the meeting]."
Libya's representative at the Cairo summit was Mosbah Ali Matoug, a member of the management committee at the country's National Oil Corporation.
The former top oil official of the war-ravaged North African country, Shokri Ghanem, announced his defection from Col. Moammar Gadhafi's embattled regime Wednesday in Rome.
He said "unbearable" violence against civilians had forced his decision and added that he backed "the choice of Libyan youth to create a modern constitutional state respecting human rights and building a better future for all Libyans."
Wealthy gas-rich Qatar, along with other western allies, is helping fund the Libyan rebels fight against Gadhafi forces, supplying fuel, humanitarian aid and medical equipment.