THE GAS EXPORTING COUNTRIES FORUM: IS IT A ‘GAS-OPEC’?

Abstract A cartel is a collusion which always results in harm to consumers. When enterprises collude they always either fix prices or allocate markets or do like activities. Cartels have always been considered to be anti-competitive; whether it operates at domestic level or international level. Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) being the Intergovernmental Organization of Natural Gas exporters of the world is often considered being harming the interests of gas consumers by allocating the markets and raising the prices of Natural Gas; a same activity as done by Organization for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) another Intergovernmental Organization in the field of oil. That is why a comparison is more likely in both of the organizations. In order to refer GECF as a cartel sometimes it is called ‘Gas-OPEC’ by some scholars. This paper tries to analysis that whether GECF is also going on the same track of OPEC, is it really became an international cartel.