DOHA: Gas-rich Qatar on Tuesday renewed calls by exporters of natural gas for a mechanism to link pricing for the commodity to oil prices to ensure stability in the market.
"This is the best way (for) stability to be brought back into the market," said Qatari Energy Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah.
"If there were to be an agreement on gas pricing, the market would be open to everyone," he told reporters on the sidelines of a gas forum in Doha.
"There would be a guaranteed supply, instead of having exporters switching destinations of their exports depending on (offered) prices," Sheikh Abdullah added.
Gas prices are determined either in long-term contracts between seller and buyer or on spot markets.
But the energy chief of Qatar, which sits on the world’s third largest reserves of natural gas, brushed aside questions on calls to form a cartel of gas exporters like OPEC which sets quota allocations.
"No cartel," he said in a curt response.
Qatar is home to the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, whose members control 69 percent of proven global natural gas reserves.
World gas demand dropped by 2.1 percent in 2009 due to the global economic recession, according to a paper produced by the International Energy Forum and International Gas Union, the joint organizers of the forum.
Attiyah told participants at the forum that natural gas saw the largest drop in consumption last year in the primary energy mix.
