OREANDA-NEWS. April 22, 2010. Russian energy minister Sergey Shmatko said that the meeting participants agreed to conduct work on attachment of gas prices to oil value.

“All the ministers came to consent and backed the suggestion to continue our efforts on attaching prices for gas to oil prices,” Shmatko said.

“The meeting involved ministers of Algeria, Bolivia, Venezuela, Egypt, Qatar, Nigeria, Russia, Trinidad & Tobago, Equatorial Guinea, Iran and Lybia, and reps of Netherlands and Norway. Aspiration to attach gas prices to oil ones is linked with ‘gas OPEC’ displeasure with the fact that growth of world oil prices observed since 2009 did not reflect favorably on the cost of natural gas at the spot market.

The same problem lies in the basis of Azerbaijani-Turkish negotiations about gas export price. Today Azerbaijan supplies gas to Turkey at the price of USD120 per 1,000 cu m that is about 5-fold cheaper than value of equivalent volume of oil.