Veteran former Saudi oil minister Yamani dies at 90

  • 23/02/21

Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the long-serving former Saudi Arabian oil minister who led Riyadh through the 1973 Arab oil embargo and oversaw the nationalisation of Saudi Aramco, has died in London at the age of 90.

Yamani served as oil minister from 1962 until 1986. Along with his counterparts in other Opec Arab oil exporting countries, he managed a series of supply cuts in response to Washington's support for Israel during the 1973 October War against Egypt and Syria. Continued US support for Israel prompted Saudi Arabia and others to declare a full embargo on oil supplies to the US and other western countries, a move that became known as the "oil weapon". Crude prices quadrupled globally, gasoline shortages led to long queues at US service stations, and the oil revenues and wealth of the Middle East's oil exporting countries increased.

During his tenure as oil minister, Yamani propelled Saudi Arabia to a leading role in Opec, and the country has been the organisation's largest and most influential producer ever since. The global press followed his every statement, which affected the price of both crude and refined products. "To the global oil industry, to politicians and senior civil servants, to journalists and to the world at large, Yamani became the representative, and indeed the symbol, of the new age of oil," Daniel Yergin wrote in his well-known expose of the oil industry, entitled The Prize.

Following the oil crisis, Yamani oversaw the full nationalisation of the Arabian American Oil Company, which became Saudi Aramco. Riyadh arrived at an accommodation with the US after the 1973 war, and Yamani became a price moderate, advocating the view that high oil prices would eventually destroy demand and facilitate production from new areas such as the North Sea. When a second oil shock hit following the 1979 Iranian revolution, Saudi Arabia held its oil prices at official levels to help importers, while other Opec producers increased them.

Later, when a recession in the West reduced demand and caused a supply glut in the early 1980s, Yamani cut Saudi production to a 20-year low of less than 3mn b/d in a bid to protect prices. The then Saudi monarch, King Fahd, had asked him to shield Saudi market share as well as prop up prices. But other Opec producers boosted their market share and the oil glut increased, causing prices to crash below $10/bl. Yamani paid the price, with King Fahd issuing a public statement dismissing him in October 1986. He went on to set up the Centre for Global Energy Studies, an energy consultancy based in London, in 1989, when crude prices were still around $20/bl.

Yamani witnessed two dramatic historical moments during his tenure as oil minister. He and around 60 others were taken hostage during an attack by six assailants led by Venezuelan terrorist "Carlos the Jackal" on Opec's Vienna headquarters in December 1975. The attackers held ministers in a dynamite-rigged room for two days, and were eventually allowed to fly out of Austria with their most senior hostages. After almost 2 days on board, including numerous flights between Algeria and Libya, a deal was reached in Algiers, the hostages were released and the assailants were allowed to walk free. Months earlier, Yamani was present during another pivotal moment in history, when he witnessed the assassination of Saudi Arabia's King Faisal by one of his nephews in March 1975.

A commoner born in Mecca, Yamani studied law in Cairo before going to New York University and Harvard. Before becoming oil minister in 1962, he set up a law firm that undertook work for the Saudi government. He will be buried in Mecca.


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