The Gazprom headquarters hosted today a working meeting between Alexey Miller, Chairman of the Company’s Management Committee and Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Emir of the State of Qatar.

The meeting participants addressed the promising areas of cooperation between Gazprom and Qatar in the energy sector. In particular, a focus was put on potential joint investment projects between Gazprom and Qatar Petroleum as well as interaction between the companies on the European and Asia-Pacific markets.

The parties paid special attention to the world energy market development trends as well as the issues related to the expansion of the strategic partnership ties within the Gas Exporting Countries Forum. The parties agreed that the consolidation of the global energy companies’ efforts should contribute to the international energy markets stabilization and higher energy security worldwide.

The Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al-Thani also visited the Central Production and Dispatch Department where he was informed of how the Unified Gas Supply System of Russia was operated, natural gas supply routes were optimized and uninterrupted gas deliveries were provided to Russian and foreign consumers.

Background:

The State of Qatar is the world’s third largest country in terms of natural gas reserves after Russia and Iran. The country’s proven reserves account for 25.8 trillion cubic meters.

In 2009 Qatar exported 68.19 billion cubic meters of natural gas. The bulk of the gas is exported in the form of  LNG (some 49.44 billion cubic meters). Qatar has 5 LNG projects underway, construction work is nearing completion within 2 projects. As of late 2009 the aggregate capacity of LNG plants accounted for 84.3  billion cubic meters per annum.

Qatar Petroleum is the state monopoly in the oil and gas sector of Qatar.

The Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) was established in 2001 in Teheran. The Forum was transformed into an international organization and was assigned the relevant legal status at the 7th GECF Ministerial Meeting of December 2008 held in Moscow. The GECF is headquartered in Doha (Qatar).

In December 2009 the Russian Federation representative Leonid Bokhanovsky was elected the Forum’s Secretary General. Nowadays, the Forum’s participants are Algeria, Bolivia, Venezuela, Egypt, Iran, Qatar, Libya, Nigeria, Russia, Equatorial Guinea, Trinidad & Tobago as well as Norway and Kazakhstan as observers.