GECF High Level Ad Hoc Group Convenes in Tehran

The Fourth Meeting of High Level Ad Hoc Group (HLAHG4) of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) started in Tehran on November 20 and will last until November 23.

Algerian Energy Minister Salah Khebri; Naji al-Maghrabi, chairman of Libya’s National Oil Company based in the east of the country; Kazakhstan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Erlan Idrissov; Trinidad and Tobago’s Energy Minister Nicole Olivierre; as well as high-ranking delegations from Venezuela and Peru have traveled to Tehran to participate in the GECF summit and ministerial meetings.

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh will chair the GECF extraordinary ministerial meeting. 

Meanwhile, the ordinary ministerial meeting will be chaired by the Nigerian Minister of Petroleum Resources Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, Shana news agency reported on November 20.

Presidents of Russia, Bolivia, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and Iraq, as well as the prime minister of Algeria will attend the third GECF summit. 

The member countries of the forum are Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Iraq, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, Norway, Oman and Peru have the status of observer members. 

Together, the GECF’s 12 member countries account for 67% of the world’s gas reserves, for 64% of global LNG exports and for 42% of cross-border pipeline trade.