Saudi energy minister’s first OPEC mission: Successful

05/06/2016 05:05 AST

A week ago, no one concerned with the oil industry had expected for the OPEC June meeting to end in amiable accord, despite the deep running dispute among member states.

Ghosts of doubt hovered over the meeting being successful. The failure of the April Doha meeting and the oil producers — whether a part of OPEC or not- indecision on limiting oil production still lingered in the minds of analysts, journalist and the oil news’ reading public.

Alarm also expanded as to the settings of OPEC countries themselves. Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s largest oil producer, had announced a future roadmap which is independent of oil rates and Saud Aramco going for the stock option plan. As for Iran, the third ranking oil OPEC producer, did not wish to support any decisions on freezing crude production.

Not to mention that Nigeria already suffers the cut of production due to internal conflicts, while Algeria and Venezuela both wish for OPEC to seek freezing production.

Nonetheless, those who attended the meeting and encountered the oil ministers before and after the meeting, would arrive to a different conclusion; Energy, Industry and Mineral Resources Minister Khalid A. Al-Falih had achieved remarkable progress as Saudi Aramco’s CEO and proved highly qualified to run the organization in dire times and pump life back to it. Al-Falih’s success had influenced the OPEC ministerial meeting to become amiable toward common interest, in addition to the appointment of a new OPEC Secretary General.

Nigeria’s Mohammed Barkindo was elected the new OPEC Secretary General, replacing former Libyan Oil Minister Abdalla El-Badri, and is to resume post next month.

Despite that freezing production remains an unsettled argument; the meeting was still considered a dashing success. Even Iranian oil minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said that the meeting was good and that its atmosphere was dominantly positive.

“We had a meeting without any tension,” Zanganeh said in Vienna. “We should work with each other, we are neighbors, we are counterparts in OPEC,” he said, reported Bloomberg.

Moreover, speaking to media, Minister Al-Falih considered the most realistic decision is to leave OPEC production unrestricted the way it currently is. He explained that drawing limits on production would place the group in an unnecessary dilemma.

Arab News