Nigeria's Alison-Madueke Appointed President Of Gas Exporting Countries Forum, GECF

Nigeria's Petroleum Resources Minister was Tuesday appointed President of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) at the 16th Ministerial Meeting of the forum holding in the Qatari capital city of Doha.

The Minister who was a few days back appointed President of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), is not attending the meeting because she is deeply involved in negotiations with Nigeria's two main oil workers unions (PENGASSAN and NUPENG), who Monday embarked on strike over a long list of demands which includes the adoption of the delayed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), aimed at overhauling the sector and maintenance work on oil refineries.

Nigerian's Ambassador to Qatar, Mr. Shuaibu Adamu Ahmed and NNPC's Group Executive Director, Gas & Power, Dr. David Ige are representing Alison-Madueke at the forum.

The GECF was founded in 2001 in the Iranian capital, Tehran, and its member states control over 70 percent of the world's natural gas reserves as well as more than 80 percent of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) production.

The forum is a multi-layered and an intergovernmental organization of the world's leading 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 of Doha on November 15, 2011.

The legal establishment of the forum took place on December 2008 in Moscow, where energy ministers of member states adopted the forum's charter and signed an intergovernmental agreement.

*** Azerbaijan based TREND contributed to this report.