Russ Oil-Gas

24 January 2008 - Upstream OnLine - Russia has played down fears it would back the creation of an Opec-like gas cartel at a meeting in Moscow in June after a newspaper reported Iran had urged turning an informal gas club into a more powerful body. "It would be a different structure to Opec with completely different goals," a spokesman for Gazprom told Reuters. "If one of Opec's key goals is to set production volumes to influence prices, we have a different goal - to co-ordinate investment strategies and make sure there is a balance between production capacities and market needs in the long-term," he said. The Kommersant business daily on Thursday quoted Russian industry sources as saying Iran had made a proposal last year to turn the so-called Gas Exporting Countries Forum, an informal club of the world's major gas exporting nations, into a more formal organisation.