Dieziani Alison-Madueke, minister of petroleum resources, has been appointed president of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF). The appointment took place at the 16th ministerial meeting of the forum holding in Doha, capital of Qatar, on Tuesday.
Alison-Madueke was represented by Shuaibu Ahmed, Nigeria ambassador to Qatar, and David Ige, NNPC’s group executive director, gas and power. She is not attending the meeting due to her involvement in negotiations with oil workers union (Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG).
On Monday, the two unions embarked on an industrial action over a long list of demands including the adoption of the delayed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) aimed at overhauling the sector and maintenance work on oil refineries.
Alison-Madueke was recently appointed president of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Founded in 2001 in Tehran, capital of Iran, GECF and its member states control over 70 per cent of the world’s natural gas reserves as well as more than 80 per cent of the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) production.
The forum is a multi-layer, intergovernmental organisation of the world’s leading natural gas producers comprising Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates and Venezuela. Kazakhstan, Iraq, the Netherlands and Norway have the status of observer members.