Nigeria re-affirms commitment to forum of gas exporting countries                       

 Nigeria has assured the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) of its continuous support as it struggles to surmount the challenges that the global oil and gas industry is facing.

President Muhammadu Buhari gave this assurance at the third summit of Heads of State and Government of the GECF member countries in the Iranian capital, Tehran.

The President noted that trying times call for more cooperation and coordination among member countries, while thanking President Hassan Rouhani of Iran for the invitation to discuss issues affecting the GECF and reaffirm commitment to the objectives of the forum.

Speaking at the 17th ministerial meeting of the GECF at the weekend, also in Tehran, GECF president and Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum resources, Ibe Kachikwu, identified market volatility, increasing competition, price war and escalating cost of infrastructure development as the key challenges facing the gas industry in general and the GECF in particular.

Kachikwu posited that volatility had brought so much uncertainty and instability to the market, thus affecting decisions on investment for long-term supply of gas.

He noted that increasing competition occasioned by the surge in new gas producers had led to a price war at a time when the cost of infrastructure development was escalating.

These developments, he said, are setting the stage for even more challenges for the industry and GECF member countries in the future.

However, Kachikwu cautioned against reacting to the current challenges by failing to invest in the industry.

He assured that the current challenges would come to pass and the market would rebound given the world’s need for energy and the environmental credentials of gas as the cleanest hydrocarbon fuel.

Commending the forum for the success it has achieved since inception in 2001, the GECF president urged member countries to continue to give the Forum the required support to make it realise its fullest potentials.

He paid tribute to the government and people of Iran for hosting the 3rd Summit of the GECF Heads of State and Government noting that it was a great achievement for the GECF that it was able to hold three successful summits within a period of five years, first in Doha (2011), then in Moscow (2013) and now in Tehran in 2015.

The Forum announced the re-appointment of SM Hossein Adeli, as GECF secretary general for another period of two years.

Adeli, an Iranian professor of economics and former governor of the Iranian Central Bank, had competed for the position with Nigeria’s Shuaibu Adamu Ahmed, a diplomat, chartered accountant and financial consultant.

Nine heads of state and government of the forum’s member countries and five representatives of other member and observer countries attended the GECF summit.