The Gas Exporting Countries Forum, or GECF, has no immediate plans to coordinate output volumes to regulate prices but doesn't rule out becoming an Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries-like cartel in the future, the group's newly elected general-secretary, Leonid Bokhanovsky, said Tuesday.
"The issue of turning the forum into a gas cartel is not yet on the agenda," Bokhanovsky said at a press conference in Moscow. However, he didn't rule out coordinated action between member states in the future.
At a meeting in Doha last week, Bokhanovsky, vice president of the Russian engineering-construction company StroytransGaz, was chosen to head the group for two years.
The eleven-member GECF--which includes Qatar, Russia, Algeria, Bolivia, Venezuela, Egypt, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Trinidad & Tobago, and Equatorial Guinea--was formally set up in December last year. The goal was for member states to jointly analyze the state of the gas market and its future tendencies, Bokhanovsky said.
Bokhanovsky also said gas producing countries Norway, Kazakhstan, Australia and Canada could become members of the group.