Looking back on the crisis, Yamani told CNN in 2010 that it was “the Arab oil [embargo] means, and I was behind it, without hurting the economy, just to attract international public opinion [there] a problem between the Palestinians and the Israelis. “The stated goal of Yamani during the embargo was to force Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territory.
But the rapid rise in oil prices was a big blow for OPEC members. “Unfortunately, money is very attractive, members of OPEC, they are fond of money and income. And this is why they are pushing the price up as quickly as possible. and they paid the price for what they did, ”Yamani said.
The former oil minister told CNN he did not regret the embargo. But he had doubts about OPEC’s subsequent attempts to determine prices.
“I regret what OPEC did. You can’t really control the price. It was price mismanagement, power mismanagement,” he said.
At the time, OPEC controlled about 80% of global production, a far cry from its reduced status today. (Based on its own projections for 2021, OPEC’s market share has shrunk to around 30%). The official history of the U.S. Department of State states that it prompted a “slowdown in U.S. efforts to address the foreign policy challenges posed by long-term dependence. on foreign oil. “These efforts included an increase in domestic supply, and in 2019 the United States became the world’s largest producer of oil.
Urbane, elegant and fluent in English, Yamani attended Harvard Law School before being dragged out of darkness by the future King Faisal to lead the Saudi oil ministry. At the time, Saudi Arabia was a middle-class representative. Within a decade, it would be a behemoth. One of Yamani’s enduring achievements was to increase Saudi Arabia’s ownership of (and revenues from) the kingdom’s raw produce, which had long been controlled by a western coalition that was making up Aramco.
In 1975, Yamani witnessed the murder of his mentor, King Faisal, by a disgruntled prince.
It has been a difficult year for the young minister. On December 21, 1975, he and other OPEC oil ministers were hosted in Vienna by a group led by Carlos the Jackal, the most notorious international terrorist of the time. A statement from the invaders called for a role “for Arabs and others in the third world” in dealing with oil resources.
The terrorists managed to get the Austrian government to provide a plane to take them and several ministers to Algiers. Carlos intended to kill both Yamani and Iranian Oil Minister Jamshid Amuzegar but finally agreed to their release after Algerian centralization.
Yamani’s fall from grace came as a result of King Fahd’s claim in 1986 that he get an increase in Saudi Arabia’s export quota within OPEC – and get the cartel to set a price of $ 18 per barrel. He was unable to deliver on the King’s goals and was dismissed shortly afterwards.
In later years, Yamani said the price of oil was profitable, leading to volatile movements. And it wasn’t just profiteering. He told CNN: “Don’t forget that politics matters. Anything can happen and it can damage or uproot the oil industry.”
While still involved in the world of energy, Yamani developed an interest in watches, poetry and introduced Islamic texts. He was a very pious man and the son of a distinguished theological scholar.
Yamani took advantage of the opportunities presented by Saudi Arabia’s unique position as an energy producer at a time when the United States, Europe and Japan needed much of its oil. In his 2010 CNN interview, he said that oil would remain part of the energy mix despite the rise of renewable sources, but acknowledged that it would never go ahead.
“The age of the stone came to an end not for lack of stones, and the age of oil comes to an end, but not for lack of oil.”