GECF and Opec officials during the meeting
The Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) Secretariat leadership team, led by Secretary General Yury Sentyurin, held discussions with Opec Secretary-General Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo and the Opec delegation for the 1st Technical Meeting of the OPEC-GECF Energy Dialogue on June 22 via a webinar.
The meeting reflected on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy, oil and gas markets, mediumand long-term energy market assumptions and perspectives, as well as technical collaboration on data and statistics.
The two organizations also renewed their commitment to laying the groundwork of closer collaboration even under the unprecedented circumstances being faced by the global economy.
The meeting also reached a consensus on the importance of energy security and maintaining stability in the energy markets as well as supporting and promoting the unique importance of multilateralism.
Barkindo referred to the recent decisions taken by participants of the Declaration of Cooperation at the 9th, 10th and 11th (Extraordinary) Opec and Non-Opec Ministerial meetings held on 9-10, 12 April and 6 June 2020, respectively, to adjust overall crude oil production by 9.7 mb/d for May and June 2020, with a further extension until the end of July agreed at the 11th meeting.
Further adjustments are to take place for a total of two years under the initial agreement, until 31 December 2020 by 7.7 mb/d; and from 1 January 2021 to 30 April 2022 by 5.8 mb/d.
Yury Sentyurin said: “We consider the GECF-Opec Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be a milestone in the evolving relationship between our entities. Since the signing of the bilateral MoU between GECF and Opec in Moscow on the sidelines of the Russian Energy Week in October 2019, our collaboration has been developing incrementally due to the ongoing fruitful dialogue and enabling working contacts between our officials.”
Speaking about the pressing issues facing the oil and gas industry, the GECF Secretary General remarked that, at present, the Forum is elaborating a new post-COVID-19 scenario, which forecasts natural gas demand to decline in 2020 by 2.8 percent in the best-case scenario and up to 6 percent in the worstcase scenario. In the long run though, according to the longterm projections, the natural gas will remain an indispensable fuel for the energy transition. GECF Secretary General reaffirmed the Forum’s readiness to formulate a special box on natural gas and LNG supply in the new edition of the Opec World Oil Outlook 2020.
