For more than two decades, the oil market hung to Ali al-Naimi\u2019s every word — whether he was taking a characteristic stroll at dawn on Vienna\u2019s Ringstrasse, hurrying through a hotel lobby after a conference, or dodging throngs of reporters at an OPEC meeting.<\/p>\n
Now that he\u2019s done with his near 21-year stint as Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil minister, during which his utterances could move everything from crude to currencies and stocks worldwide, al-Naimi says he doesn\u2019t want to talk about the market anymore.<\/p>\n
“As far as oil prices and oil, I have left that behind,\u201d he said on Friday at an event in Singapore to launch his book \u2018Out of the Desert: My Journey From Nomadic Bedouin to the Heart of Global Oil\u2019.<\/p>\n
Al-Naimi was the architect of the 2014 strategy by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to continue pumping amid a global glut to squeeze out higher-cost producers including U.S. shale drillers. After becoming oil minister in 1995, he steered the world\u2019s largest crude exporter through wild price swings, regional wars, technological progress and the rise of climate change as a key policy concern. He stepped down from the role last year.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s not easing up and relaxing into retirement though. Instead, he\u2019s looking up to the sun after years of musing about what\u2019s pumped from under the ground. \u201cNow I\u2019m much more interested in solar energy, making solar panels,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you could help me there, good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Saudi Arabia is embarking on a $50 billion renewable-resources push to meeting growing energy demand while tempering domestic oil use. Starting this year, the OPEC\u2019s biggest crude producer plans to develop almost 10 gigawatts of renewable energy such as solar and wind power by 2023.<\/p>\n
Staying young
\nAl-Naimi\u2019s focus on solar energy is his way of staying young. \u201cOtherwise you\u2019ll die. You need to keep the brain going,\u201d said the 81-year-old, who still goes running and mountain climbing to stay fit.<\/p>\n
The title of his book refers to his childhood days as part of his mother\u2019s nomadic tribe, when he used to take care of lambs. His life made a decisive turn in early adolescence when he took over a job as an office boy for Arabian American Oil Co., the forerunner of state-run Saudi Aramco, after the death of an older brother. He went on to study at Lehigh University and Stanford University, rose through the ranks at Aramco, and the government selected him to lead the oil ministry in August 1995.<\/p>\n
Al-Naimi\u2019s successor, Khalid Al-Falih, has marshaled a different oil-market strategy. OPEC and some other producers including Russia started cutting output last month as part of a deal aimed at easing bloated global inventories, with Saudi Arabia making significant curbs to its production. But that\u2019s also prompted a resurgence in U.S. drilling and an increase in the flow of crude from rivals to the group\u2019s prized Asian market.<\/p>\n
Brent crude, the benchmark for more than half the world\u2019s oil, traded 0.5 percent higher at $56.24 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange by 4:11 p.m. London time. Prices were at more than $115 a barrel in mid-2014.<\/p>\n
In his book, al-Naimi strongly defended the no-limits approach he convinced OPEC to adopt. The best way to re-balance the market is still to let supply, demand and prices work, he wrote.<\/p>\n
At Friday\u2019s event in Singapore, when asked about his views on OPEC complying with the deal to cut output and whether Russia would keep its promise of reducing production, he stopped and thought for a moment. Then he said sorry and left the venue without commenting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For more than two decades, the oil market hung to Ali al-Naimi\u2019s every word — whether he was taking a characteristic stroll at dawn on Vienna\u2019s Ringstrasse, hurrying through a hotel lobby after a conference, or dodging throngs of reporters at an OPEC meeting. Now that he\u2019s done with his near 21-year stint as Saudi Arabia\u2019s oil minister, during which his utterances could move everything from crude to currencies and stocks worldwide, al-Naimi says he doesn\u2019t want to talk about the market anymore. “As far as oil prices and oil, I have left that behind,\u201d he said on Friday at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-oil-gas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102032\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}