06 December 2014, Abuja — Newly elected President of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Diezani Allison-Madueke, has disclosed her plan to convene a meeting of the organisation early January to find drastic solution to dwindling oil price if the trend continues.
Diezani, who is Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, said even before that happens, Nigeria will start re-strategising its production and marketing abilities in order to remain competitive and attract a bigger slice of the end users of petroleum products.
She also described her election to head the oil cartel as having come at a very challenging and critical time because of the unfortunate intrigues among some oil-producing nations, which has left some other less fortunate producers in distress.
According to her: “It is the OPEC President that calls for extraordinary meetings of OPEC which will possibly happen in the next quarter of next year if the downward trend in crude prices continue amongst other things and responsibilities that Presidency has to day.
“This is a very challenging time for OPEC and for the global crude oil world as a whole. Quite clearly, there has been a battle of wits between certain OPEC countries, the big players and certain non-OPEC countries who are big players in the world crude oil production markets at this time.
“So, it is a challenging time to take over as OPEC president at this time and our prayer of course, is that we will be able to stabilise the crude oil prices per barrel over this period because it is critical.”
She assured, however, that: “we will be watching very closely as President of OPEC at this time at what point we have to call OPEC extra-ordinary meeting and reconvene to see whether other strategies can be put into play”.
Regarding Nigeria’s response to the development, Diezani said the country “has to be much more competitive at this time and going into the future. We cannot continue to do business as usual.”
*Chesa Chesa – Daily Independent