Iran Hosting Gas Exporting Countries Forum Ministerial Meeting

Tehran, Nov 3, IRNA - The 15th ministerial meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) opened in Tehran on Sunday. The GECF`s financial and administrative issues as well as budget for 2014 are scheduled to be surveyed at the meeting. During the gathering the GECFs secretary general will be also elected. The forum is considered as a multi-layered and an intergovernmental organization of the worlds leading 13 natural gas producers comprising Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Kazakhstan, Iraq, the Netherlands and Norway have the status of observer members. The first GECF summit meeting was held in the Qatari capital, Doha, on November 15, 2011. The GECF was founded in 2001 in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and its member states control over 70 percent of the worlds natural gas reserves as well as more than 80 percent of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) production. The legal establishment of the forum took place on December 2008 in Moscow, where energy ministers of member states adopted the forums charter and signed an intergovernmental agreement./end