Members of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum discussed setting up a common bank to finance joint investment projects, the new head of the group said.

The bank was discussed at an earlier meeting of the 13-nation group and "has not been followed up recently," Iran's Mohammad Hossein Adeli said in interview from the group's headquarters in Qatar's capital Doha.

"The idea of helping each other in investment, in financing projects, and in long-term plans for investment is something that has already come up," he said, Iran's SHANA news agency reported.

Adeli, who replaced Russia's Leonid Bokhanovsky as the secretary general of the GECF at the start of the year, is seeking to foster closer cooperation just as international rivalry increases.

Russia and Qatar are the two largest exporters in the GECF, according to data compiled by BP plc. The group, whose other members are Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela, controls 62 percent of world gas reserves, according to its website.

While the GECF has sometimes been dubbed the "gas OPEC," it hasn't sought to influence prices by adjusting production, as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries does with crude oil. Such minimal interference in the market is unlikely to change, Adeli said.

"I have not seen attempts by any country to go in this direction," he said. "Given the nature of the gas, it's not possible."

Adeli told reporters after his election in Tehran on Nov. 3 that he wants to help his country become a "major player among the gas exporting countries."

In a "few months" the GECF will increase transparency by starting to issue regular reports on subjects including supply, prices, shale gas, developments in different countries, and hub pricing, Adeli said. "This is our intention, to indigenously develop our own views about gas," and then share them with the public, he said.

International oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM:US) have been invited to a meeting with the GECF at the end of this month, he said.

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