Nigeria’s minister of state for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu has officially replaced former Petroleum Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke as conference president of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
This announcement ends speculations by All Progress Congress (APC) supporters that President Muhammadu Buhari would be named OPEC president to fulfill one of his controversial campaign promises. Buhari had during the 2015 presidential campaigns promises to stabilise oil prices.
In a recent update on its website, OPEC named Kachikwu, who is also the group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), as the head of the OPEC conference.
Kachikwu revealed his plans for the organisation, saying he would do his best to delay Iran’s entry into the global crude oil market with a view of controlling oil prices.
“I think the key thing will be obviously crude oil price. There is a lot of sensitivity on that, $42 currently and with potential to go down if Iran throws their barrels into the field,” Kachikwu revealed in Lagos.
“My first target as I meet with ministers one-on-one is to try to delay Iran’s flooding of the market to the last quarter of next year. I will be talking with Iran’s oil minister on that so that we can stabilise the price.
“Maybe, hopefully, by the first or second quarter of next year, we will begin to see how that statement can now embolden us to go and begin to address removing the 1.5mbpd production that is lying in the market internationally.”
Kachikwu attends his first OPEC summit as president on Friday, December 4, 2015.
Alison-Madueke was named the first female president of OPEC in November 2014, when she was elected at the 166th ordinary meeting of the organisation.
