The sixth Gas Exporting Countries Forum conference is being held in Doha against a backdrop of rising tensions between Russia and Western powers over Ukraine.
The forum, which has 11 members and seven additional countries with a watching brief, represents 71 percent of the world’s proven natural gas reserves, as well as 43 percent of its marketed production, 58 percent of LNG exports and 52 percent of pipeline trade across the globe.
Here are the updates from the conference:
Russia will continue to deliver uninterrupted natural gas supplies to world markets, President Vladimir Putin said in a letter to the conference.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi urged gas exporters to avoid any “cruel” sanctions such as those imposed by the US on Tehran, and his government said any revival of Iran’s 2015 nuclear accord with world powers must lift such curbs.
Iraq aims to shift its investment priority from the oil sector to gas for the first time in the country’s history, oil minister Ihsan Abdul-Jabbar said. This would allow Iraq to increase its production of liqueified petroleum gas and distillates, Abdul-Jabbar added.
There is no need for OPEC+ to expand its oil production increases, Nigeria’s petroleum minister said, as the group sees a potential deal between Iran and world powers unlocking more supplies. “We don’t have do anything extraordinary this time because we are expecting a lot of production,” Timipre Sylva said, according to Reuters. “We are expecting more production if a nuclear deal with Iran works out (since) there will be production from them,” Sylva added.