OPEC said in a statement on August 1, 2016, that Nigeria's Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo on Monday was appointed Secretary General of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo is expected to occupy the position for 3 years in the first instance with effect from 1st August 2016.
The new OPEC´s Secretary General is coming to the position with a 23 year career in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the oil and gas industry. Barkindo was a one-time Group Managing Director of the NNPC and also served as Acting OPEC Secretary Geneneral in 2006.
«He is a highly skillful negotiator and middleman» and these qualities «will be tested significantly» by the divisions in OPEC, said Ed Morse, Head of commodities research at Citigroup Inc. in New York. «Barkindo will be as successful as anyone could be, more successful than most others,” having learned from experiences in Nigeria’s oil industry how “to forge agreements through compromise,» he said.
Mohammad Barkindo replaces outgoing Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri who has led the Organization since 1 January 2007.
The decision to replace Badri was made at the previous OPEC meeting in the Austrian capital of Vienna on June 2, 2016.
