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Close Topic OptionsThe New O P E C For Natural Gas?
The Natural Gas - Politics, Business, Civil, History - Posted: 29th Mar, 2007 - 2:51am
Posts: 1 - Views: 965
The New O P E C For Natural Gas?
What would be the implications of a Natural Gas "OPEC" that operated much like the Petroleum OPEC? These are the countries possibly looking to create this cartel, controlling between them approximately 60% of the world's natural gas:
Russia, Algeria, Iran, Qatar, and Venezuela.
| QUOTE |
| Algeria keen on establishing "Gas OPEC" afrol News, 27 March - Algeria, together with Russia, seriously has started looking into the prospects of establishing a cartel of the world's major producers of natural gas, a parallel to the oil cartel OPEC. Main gas producing nations are to meet in the Qatari capital, Doha, on 9 April to discuss the idea. OPEC, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, for decades has been able to strongly influence world market prices of oil by a quota system. Oil production and prices have even at occasions been used as political pressure by OPEC, a cartel that only recently saw Angola and Sudan joining the block. The idea of a "Gas OPEC" has been discussed for a long time, but so far has found no political interest among the world's biggest players. Leading gas exporter Russia - which also is a major oil producer - has not even joined OPEC. Arguments countering a gas cartel have included the limited range of gas exports, which normally goes from producer to consumer through a pipeline. Markets are therefore unconnected and exporters and importers are more interdependent than in the oil market. But the natural gas market has become increasingly important and global, and the major players have shown a growing willingness of using exports as a political card. Russia recently used gas supplies and prices to blackmail the former Soviet republics of Georgia, Ukraine and Byelorussia, leading Moscow into a diplomatic crisis with the European Union (EU), its main customer. Even Algeria during the last few months has shown its willingness to flex its economic muzzles with Spain over the Western Sahara conflict. Algeria is the main gas supplier to south-western Europe, accounting for 10 percent of the EU's gas imports. |
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TOPIC: The New O P E C For Natural Gas?