…Group fails to reach agreement on limiting its output
02 June 2016, Sweetcrude, Vienna, Austria – Nigeria’s Mohammed Barkindo has been named new secretary-general of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC.
He was unveiled Thursday as the new secretary-general in Vienna, Austria after the 169th meeting of the 13-nation group.
He will be in the saddle for the next three years.
A former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, who was in that office between 2009 and 2010, Barkindo assumes his new position as OPEC looks forward to a balanced oil market.
He was nominated by the Nigerian government to contest the position.
Barkindo would be succeeding Libya’s Oil Minister, Abdalla El-Badri, elected acting secretary-general in December 2015, and whose tenure expires next month.
Until the meeting on Thursday, OPEC members failed to reach a consensus on who should be handed the office.
Barkindo had earlier in 2006 been nominated by the Nigerian government to vie for same position after he had previously occupied it in acting capacity while representing Nigeria in the organisation.
At the meeting on Thursday, OPEC did not reach a decision on limiting its oil output.
