Dubai (Platts)--15Apr2010/715 am EDT/1115 GMT

A meeting of major gas exporting countries due to take place in the Algerian city of Oran on Monday will discuss gas market developments and prices, but the Gas Exporting Countries Forum will not be turned into an OPEC-style cartel, Libya's senior oil official said Thursday.

Shokri Ghanem, who heads the Libyan National Oil Company, or NOC, said in a statement posted on the state-run company's website that the GECF will review a study being prepared by Algeria on gas prices, which he said had experienced extreme volatility.

However, the gas exporters' group will not be turned "into an organization along the lines of the Organization of the Oil Exporting Countries" on the issue of gas pricing. Algerian oil minister Chakib Khelil said last month on the sidelines of an OPEC meeting in Vienna that his country would propose limiting gas supply to the depressed spot market in an effort to shore up oil prices.

He said at the time that he hoped the Oran meeting would result in an agreement similar to one adopted by OPEC in December 2008, when the oil producers' club agreed one of their steepest production cuts in an effort to lift oil prices, which had slumped from record highs of above $147/barrel earlier that year.

Khelil's proposal has not been embraced by other key gas exporters, in particular Russia, the world's leading gas power, and Qatar, the largest LNG exporter, both of which have said they don't see supply limits as a workable option for gas, which is sold under long-term contracts.

Libya is a relatively small supplier of natural gas to Europe but is in the process of expanding its oil and gas production capacity, including LNG.

The members of the GECF control roughly two-thirds of the world's gas supply and Khelil's remarks rekindled fears among consuming countries that gas exporters may try to turn their loose grouping into a more formal gas cartel.

Khelil said last year that the GECF should act more like OPEC as an economic organization in defense of prices, citing competition from non-conventional gas such as shale gas in the US.

--Kate Dourian, kate_dourian@platts.com