MOSCOW (AFP)--Ministers from gas-exporting countries are to meet in Moscow Tuesday to finalize the rules of their new club and douse expectations it will act as the gas equivalent of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries oil cartel.
The forum, which groups Russia, the world's biggest gas producer, with other gas-rich states, such as Iran and Qatar, has been greeted with suspicion in the West over fears it could seek to influence prices like OPEC.
But officials from member states of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum have said the purpose of the meeting is to put the finishing touches on the body rather than create a cartel.
"I emphasize that we have no intention of creating a cartel of producers," Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said in an interview with the government daily Rossiskaya Gazeta on Monday.
"Our aim is to guarantee an indispensable equilibrium between gas suppliers and to coordinate policies between consumer and producer countries."
At the meeting, "we are thinking about the way to establish the 'rules of the game'," he said.
The Russian energy ministry said the goal of the meeting is to adopt the statutes for the forum as well as give the appropriate directives to formalize its creation.
Members of OPEC meet regularly to agree their production quotas in order to influence the price of crude oil on global markets.
But ministers, as well as analysts, agree that a cartel for natural gas makes far less sense.
"None of us wants to lose part of our sovereignty in the making of decisions," said Shmatko.
"But producer countries must coordinate their actions, exchange information and do everything to guarantee an uninterrupted supply of hydrocarbons to world markets."
Vyacheslav Bunkov, an analyst with Aton investment group, said: "Consumer countries have no reason to fear the creation of an OPEC for gas.
"There is a serious difference between the oil market and the gas market, which renders the idea of the gas cartel superfluous.
"Gas is delivered through pipes. If a producer stops selling, you can't just replace it with another. Free price setting does not exist. It is a bilateral market."
The forum groups Algeria, Bolivia, Brunei, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Libya, Malaysia, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Equatorial Guinea and Norway will attend as observers.
Five of these countries between them control nearly two-thirds of the world's gas reserves and account for 42% of its production - Russia, Iran, Qatar, Venezuela and Algeria.