The fifth Ministerial Meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries' Forum (GECF) was held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago and was attended by Petroleum and Energy Ministers, Ambassadors and senior officials of the gas sectors of thirteen countries, namely, Algeria, Brunei, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea (observer), Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria, Norway (observer), Qatar, Russia, Emirates, Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago (host country).


Eng. Mohamed Tawila, EGAS Chairman and head of Egyptian delegation to the forum, gave a speech in the opening session in on behalf of His Excellency Eng. Sameh Fahmy, the Minister of Petroleum and the Chairman of the 4th Gas Exporting Countries' Forum


Eng. Tawila gave an account of the stewardship of Egypt over the past year in which Egypt hosted the 4th Ministerial Meeting of the GECF, in addition to other meetings and activities of the Forum which were filled with fruitful and cooperative discussions in continuation from previous years in Iran, Algeria, and Qatar, and which, of course, will continue in Trinidad and Tobago.

Throughout the year in Egypt, the GECF did its utmost to promote measures and processes necessary to ensure that member countries drive the most value from their gas resources through appropriate dialog and the sharing of know-how and experience to efficiently and effectively exploit their gas resources to the maximum benefit of their country and their peoples.

A three successful executive bureau meetings supported with an expert meetings were held in Cairo, including an extraordinary meeting, resulted in defining the framework, objectives and structure of the GECF. The Executive Bureau also discussed the development of a gas supply and demand model providing the Forum with an objective analysis of present and future gas markets. Moreover the establishment of the Liaison Office and the Gas Information Center location were achieved. Many other subjets including the contractual frameworks for the implementation of gas projects, cross border interconnection gas grids, etc... were discussed and raised during the last round in Cairo.

The Honourable Eric A. Williams, Minister of Energy and Energy Industries and Chairman of the 5th Ministerial Meeting thanked H.E. Eng. Sameh Fahmy Minister of Petroleum of Egypt for his consistent support and wise counsel throughout Egypt's chairmanship over the past year. He also articulated his expectation that the GECF member countries would identify mechanisms that would deepen cooperation on natural gas trade and economic policy matters.

During the 5th ministerial meeting in Trinidad various items were achieved, the general framework, objectives and structure of the GECF were endorsed by the meeting. Also all participants agreed that the Liaison Office will be located in Qatar. All members highlighted the need to facilitate the exchange of information among participating countries and asked to maintain and record ongoing studies and models as some of the objectives of the Liaison Office.

Finally, the Forum accepted the invitation of Venezuela to host the 6th Ministerial Meeting in 2006.