The 15-member GECF agreed on a charter in December last year, which transformed it from a loose, consultative body into a formal organisation with a permanent secretariat in the Qatari capital. Between them, members of GECF hold about three quarters of all the world’s reserves. The organisation is expected to appoint its secretary general at the upcoming meeting. Member countries had until few days before the meeting to propose candidates for the post. Candidates will be vetted at a GECF board meeting the day before ministers meet.
This will be the third time that Qatar is hosting a GECF ministerial meeting, the first being in 2003, and the second in 2007.
The countries that have confirmed their participation at the meet include Algeria, Bolivia, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Norway as observer, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Equatorial Guinea, and the UAE as guest country, besides Qatar.
The meeting will discuss the gas market as well as staffing the headquarters in Doha and the organisation’s budget and membership fees. The Forum General Coordinator had said earlier that under the instructions of Deputy Premier and Minister of Energy and Industry, H E Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, Qatar Petroleum has formed an organising committee and seven supporting committees to help ensure a successful meeting and to maintain the reputation of Qatar as a host country of major international meetings.
In 2001, major gas producers Russia, Iran and Qatar held their first meeting in Tehran to discuss the formation of GECF, with Qatar becoming one of the founding signatories to the declaration of the forum’s establishment. The charter of the forum was decided at the seventh ministerial meeting held in Moscow last year.
