OAPEC officials discuss Arab cooperation in LNG

(With photos)

DAMASCUS, Oct 27 (KUNA) -- Arab experts from Arab oil exporting countries, including Kuwait, began here on Monday a meeting to discuss potential cooperation between the Arab countries in developing natural gas.

Secretary-General of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) Abbas Naqi stressed, at the opening of the eighth meeting of Arab experts, the importance of these meetings as they came amid drastic fluctuations afflicting global energy markets and oil prices, in particular in terms of unprecedented oil price hike to about USD 148 a barrel, then drastically falling by 50 percent, reflecting the volatile market conditions and volatility of energy, thus, placing issues of energy security and trade at the forefront of global economic policy agenda.

He pointed to the general features of the natural gas market, saying gas consumption had seen in 2007 growth that was higher than the average growth rate and was 3.1 percent against 2.5 percent in 2006, and such growth had only been limited in North America, Asia and Africa.

He pointed out that the year 2007 saw weakness in the international trade of natural gas for the second time with a growth rate of 2.3 percent, less than half the rate of the last 10 years of 6.1 percent, and settled for the second time quantities of world exports of natural gas through pipelines as a result of the weak European consumption, whereas Liquefied natural gas shipments increased to about 7.3 percent in line with historical average.

For his part, Syrian Oil Minister Sufian al-Allaw said that this meeting comes in light of significant developments in some member countries of OAPEC in all areas of the natural gas industry on the exploration and transport operations on one side and steps that have been taken to achieve bilateral and regional cooperation in the field of natural gas investment on the other.

He noted that previous meetings had to deal with developments in the gas industry in each country and exchange of information with a view to finding common ground for cooperation in the field of investment and transfer of gas.

The Syrian minister said the Arab Gas Pipeline, which carries gas from the Egyptian El-Arish to Jordan, Syria and Lebanon as the best example of cooperation in this field, adding that this gas was pumped to his country.

He added that work is currently underway to link the Turkish with the Syrian network and will be completed at the end of next year.

He said this would allow to export the Arab gas to Europe.