Gas producing and exporting countries should continue using a formula that links gas prices to prices on oil markets to stimulate a wider use of the fuel, the Qatari ruler said on Tuesday.
"Gas exporters must not give up their legitimate demands to link gas prices to oil prices," Qatar Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani said at a summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum.
The summit of gas producers and exporters is discussing measures to improve technologies allowing for the wider use of gas, provide support for its sales on international and regional markets and the elaboration of a regulatory base for the use of gas as a more environmentally friendly fuel and its promotion to new markets.
The Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a gas equivalent of the oil cartel OPEC, which controls over 70 percent of the world's natural gas reserves and more than 80 percent of the liquefied natural gas production, was founded in 2001 in Tehran.
The forum was legally established on December 2008 in Moscow where energy ministers of its member countries adopted the forum's charter and signed an intergovernmental agreement.
The forum comprises Algeria, Bolivia, Venezuela, Egypt, Iran, Qatar, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, Equatorial Guinea, and Trinidad and Tobago. The Netherlands, Norway and Kazakhstan have the status of observers.
