Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said the oil market in the world is in a dire state that will take a long time to recover. Addressing the reporters ahead of the 3rd Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) Summit Meeting in Tehran, Novak said the global oil market is in a difficult situation where supply exceeds demand. The best and most efficient way to rebalance the market in the long-run is to exploit market tools to coordinate supply and demand, he said. He added that oil supply growth is not as it was in the past and has even reduced in some cases, while demand for crude oil is on the rise and grows only 0.5 billion barrels a year. For this reason, one should expect to see oil market rebalance in a long time, he said. Novak said Moscow is in talks with a number of the member countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), saying that representatives from the country will attend the expert meeting of OPEC due in Vienna in mid-December. He furthers said gaining Russias oil markets is not an easy job because the refineries that buy Russian oil are adapted to the items features. Secretary General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Abadallah El-Badri and Secretary General of the International Energy Forum (IEF) Aldo Flores-Quiroga are in Tehran to take part in the Third Summit Meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) on Monday. Previous GECF gas summits were held in Qatar in 2011 and in Moscow in 2013. In the run-up to the summit, the ministerial and expert-level meetings were held on Saturday and in the last two days in Tehran preparing the documents for the approval of the forum’s leaders, according to the Ministry of Petroleum. GECF is the intergovernmental forum of the world’s leading gas producers that provides a framework for exchange of experience, views, information and data, as well as coordination in gas related developments among member countries. It consists of 19 main and observer members with its permanent secretariat based in Doha, Qatar. Russia, Iran, Qatar, Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Nigeria, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, and the United Arab Emirates, are main members of the gas exporting body. Observer countries are the Netherlands, Iraq, Oman, Azerbaijan, Peru, Kazakhstan and Norway. GECF members account for 42 percent of global gas output, 70 percent of global gas reserves, 40 percent of pipe gas transmission, and 65 percent of global trade of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).