Vice-president El Aissami: 'We should emulate OPEC+ experience to increase cooperation between Gas Exporting Countries and other nations' - MPPRE

Vice-president El Aissami: ‘We should emulate OPEC+ experience to increase cooperation between Gas Exporting Countries and other nations’

“Venezuela endorses a proposal to emulate the OPEC+ experience to increase interaction and cooperation between the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) and other nations,” said Economy Vice-president and Minister of People’s Power for Oil, Tareck El Aissame, at the 22nd Ministerial Meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), held in People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria via video conference.

The 22nd GECF Ministerial Meeting was chaired by Abdelmadjid Attar, minister of Energy of the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria, and Yury Sentyurin, GECF secretary general.

In his statement, El Aissami celebrated his incorporation into the GECF and conveyed regards from President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and the Venezuelan people to the GECF member countries.

The Venezuelan oil minister pointed out that in order to establish a greater interaction and cooperation between between the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) and other nations, Venezuela proposes the promotion of natural gas as an affordable energy source and the regional an international use of gas in different sectors.

Likewise, Venezuela’s proposal at the 22nd GECF Ministerial Meeting include the endorsement of long-term gas agreements, indexing gas prices to oil and oil by-products to encouraged stable investment in the natural gas value chain, upgrading natural gas as fuel to mitigate, adapt to climate change and protect the environment, fostering trade strategic projects through a Gas Trade Electronic Platform and new financial instruments in the gas markets.

Minister El Aissami also bought forward a proposal “to increase the investment portfolio in research and development to enable the optimization of the energy mix between fossil energy and renewable energy.”

The Venezuelan oil minister explained that one of Venezuela’s major challenges are the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the U.S. Government against PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-run oil company, that have caused a fall in gas production, affecting gas production and consumption, and a negative impact on the economy.

He also mentioned the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has reduced the world’s long-term growth forecast, resulting in a global GDP cumulative reduction of 7% between 2020 and 2050.

“This represents a great challenge regarding the use of gas as fuel to recover the world’s economic growth,” said El Aissami.

In this regard, he stressed the need of promoting complementarity of the different energy sources as a strategic factor.

“We propose to move forward with the consolidation of a mechanism involving gas producing countries, investors, and consumers in order to stabilize markets,” said El Aissami.

Finally, Minister El Aissami reiterated that Venezuela is more than confident about the GECF’s committed and collective work, which will help overcome the great challenges of the world gas market.

“We reiterate our willingness to make this organization stronger and move towards sustainable development with natural gas as a safe energy source,” he concluded.