A World Gas Grouping.

Inter Press Service (IPS) on Aug. 1, 2007, quoted former PDVSA head Luis Giusti as saying a cartel of gas producers like OPEC, an idea floated by Algeria, Iran, Russia, Venezuela and others, remained a distant possibility due to the nature of the market. He said: "It's not at all feasible this decade or the next; perhaps in the distant future, but even then only for liquefied natural gas (LNG)". Giusti, head of PDVSA until just before Chavez came to power in early 1999, told IPS natural gas was regional rather than a global business, adding: "It doesn't have an open market, it doesn't undergo intermediate processing like crude oil refining: the same methane produced at gas wells is delivered to homes and other end users".

Giusti, an adviser with the Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said "the [gas] market is regulated: when an investment in gas extraction is planned, the long term marginal cost is calculated, and the producer and consumer agree on a price, with a given percentage of profit built in".

Gas exporting states created a debating forum (the GECF) in May 2001 in Tehran, which has since met several times. Now the Gas Exporting Countries Forum has a secretariat in Doha, Qatar, a tiny GCC emirate which has become the world's largest exporter of LNG. In the April 2007 session in Doha, Venezuela sounded out opinions about creating a "gas OPEC", on the initiative of President Chavez. Collectively, the GECF control over 70% of the world's gas reserves and more than 42% of world gas production. But not much has been achieved.