Pleasing Samad can be a good measure of OPEC+
https://arab.news/cyp5y
Ambitious managers are sometimes perfectionists, and perfectionists are generally hard to please.
In my life, I’ve met only two people who are extremely hard to please and both are oil veterans. The first is a former executive at Saudi Aramco, who is now heading one of the largest projects in the Kingdom. The second is Abdulsamad Alawadhi, or simply Samad, a Kuwaiti former executive who spent three decades as a national representative for his country in OPEC before retiring in 2001.
Ironically, they are both chemical engineers who started their careers at refineries, and the two men worked in marketing their countries’ crude in Europe while at respective offices in London.
Being with such characters can be very frustrating, but at the same time very rewarding. As they are both highly logical, they entice those around them to make convincing arguments to win their hearts, and in the process, one learns how to be patient and persistent. They both can burst into anger if the discussion loses logic, but they love to listen to reason.
To me, both of them were fatherly figures as they guided me on how to work hard to gain people’s trust and never take it for granted. Words must always be calculated, and thoughts must always be clear, when approaching them. I owe them greatly for making me what I am throughout the years, and that’s the rewarding part.
Samad, or Bu Jamil as he is called in Kuwait, is seldom pleased with OPEC after all these years. His trust in the organization’s decisions is limited and he has logical reasons for that. He can sound very harsh when he talks about OPEC, but deep in his heart he is enormously sympathetic.
Last year, Samad was furious over Saudi Arabia’s move to flood the market with oil at the start of the pandemic after it reached a deadlock with Russia and other OPEC+ producers. Following the meeting in March, Russia’s energy minister said it was time for everyone to open the taps, and Saudi Arabia showed everyone the danger of doing that. Prices collapsed. OPEC+ came back to its senses, and went into another agreement to curtail production, an agreement still in effect today that expires next year.
At that time, when oil tankers were lining up in Ras Tanura to load Saudi crude in unprecedented quantities, it was really hard to tell if Saudi Arabia was doing the right thing, and market observers like Samad were worried about prices as Gulf countries depend heavily on sales. Even when OPEC+ made the deal and started cutting output, Samad was still sceptical of its success, as to him, the alliance of OPEC and its counterparts from outside the group lacked unity.
This year I was utterly shocked to see Samad praising Saudi Arabia’s management of OPEC+ and the market. It’s one of the few times I have seen him thinking OPEC is doing the right thing. I learned from Samad to be cautious and not to jump to quick conclusions, so I waited for events to unfold, and I stopped writing or commenting on OPEC+ until there was more clarity.
Indeed, Saudi Arabia did a good job throughout the pandemic, using carrots and sticks to keep OPEC+ united. Yet the job is not done and 2022 will be another challenge for OPEC+, and I’ll wait to see what Samad has to say next year. At least, for now, he is pleased.
• Wael Mahdi is a senior business editor at Arab News and co-author of “OPEC in a Shale Oil World: Where to Next?” Twitter: @waelmahdi
