By Geoff King

April 19, 2010 - Energy minsters meeting at the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Algeria have agreed to continue to strive for the indexation of global gas prices in parity with oil prices and avoid competition between different forms of gas, Russian energy minister Sergei Shmatko said April 19.

"All the minsters agreed to that we continue our objectives to strive to achieve indexing of gas through oil parity," Shmatko told reporters in Oran following the gas exporters' meeting.

"We believe we should prevent any types of competition between different types of gas and we agreed to take action to improve the advantages of gas as a fossil fuel versus other types of fuel."

Shmatko said the minsters also agreed in a joint statement that producing countries and gas consumers should strive to stabilize gas consumption "because gas continues to be the most environmentally friendly type of fuel."

The GECF, whose members account for two thirds of global gas reserves, is holding its 10th meeting in Oran to try to coordinate action to bolster the gas market.

Algeria is spearheading a drive to obtain higher prices for natural gas following a slump in demand following the global economic slowdown of 2008.

The Russian minster said the GECF is also "very much concerned" about the existing proposals to impose carbon barriers on gas consumption.

"We agreed there is a current stage of conflict between the long term contracts and the spot contracts [for gas]. We should take more effort to add stability to the gas market," Shmatko said.

He said the GECF agreed a 2010 plan of action which aims at greater cooperation with countries that are not members of the forum such as Turkmenistan, Austria and others.

Earlier, Algerian oil minister Chakib Khelil said that forecasts for global gas demand were "very worrying" and demand was not expected to recover to 2008 levels till 2013.

The group's executive committee met late April 18 and a source said they had reached a consensus to act to raise gas prices but that a mechanism for doing so had yet to be decided.