Egyptian Petroleum Minister Sameh Fahmi said on Sunday that Egypt is opposed to the idea of establishing an OPEC-style cartel ("gas OPEC") for gas exporting countries, the official MENA news agency reported.

Fahmi made the remarks in a statement he gave before leaving for Doha to attend the 7th ministerial conference of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) scheduled for Monday.

Fahmi said that Egypt's rejection to the formation of such a cartel is due to its wish to maintain transparency in international gas markets.

"We refuse the idea of building a body that controls one of the essential sources of global energy," he said in the statement.

Earlier, there were media reports and speculations that the world's largest producers of natural gas, in particular Russia and Iran, plan to create a gas cartel equivalent to the OPEC which sets quotas and prices and are due to discuss the issue at the Doha meeting.

As an organization of world's leading gas producers established in Tehran in 2001, the GECF doesn't have a fixed membership structure, however Algeria, Bolivia, Brunei, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad & Tobago, the UAE and Venezuela could be identified as current members.

Turkmenistan, Bolivia, Indonesia, Libya and Oman have participated at different ministerial meetings. Norway has the status of observer, according to MENA.

Russia, Iran, Qatar, Algeria and 10 countries at the forum control about 42 percent of world gas production.

Egypt ranks 8th on the world list of gas exporting countries and 6th on that of liquified gas exporting countries, according to Fahmi.

Source: Xinhua