The world's largest gas exporters have no plans to form a gas equivalent of the oil cartel OPEC when they meet next week in Doha, capital of Qatar, a senior Iranian official said on Saturday.

Iran's OPEC governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili told Mehr News Agency that gas powers would discuss ways to enhance cooperation rather than the formation of a "gas OPEC".

Russia, Iran, Qatar, Algeria and 10 countries at the forum, which begins on Monday, control about 42 percent of world gas production. The 12 OPEC members control about 43 percent of world oil production.

The Iranian official stressed the goal for gas producers as "not to create a cartel," but "the security of supply."

Iran was adding its voice to that of Russia to sooth the fear triggered by speculation in several Western countries about the formation of a "club of gas exporters" at the Doha forum.

Russian Minister of Industry and Energy Viktor Khristenko said on Friday that a global gas market would not be formed within 10-15 years.

"The OPEC was a reaction to the appearance of the global oil market. However, a global gas market will form no earlier than 10-15 years from now, and an organization of gas exporters will

hardly emerge before that," Khristenko was quoted as saying by the Itar-Tass news agency.

Khristenko dismissed the "gas OPEC" speculation in Western countries as seeking to "create an image of a global threat with the aim to direct eyes of their public opinion to it for diverting attention from their own problems."

World gas consumption in 2005 amounted to 2.75 trillion cubic

meters, about 6.9 percent of which was liquid Natural Gas (LNG).

According to the International Energy Agency, world demand for LNG will increase to 476 billion cubic meters by 2010, from 246

billion cubic meters at the moment.

Source: Xinhua