Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, who died on July 5 aged 63, steered Opec through some of the most turbulent times for an organization with which he had been associated for nearly four decades. He died of a heart attack in his home country of Nigeria just weeks before his second three-year term as Secretary General of Opec was due to end. His legacy is assured.
Throughout his distinguished career, first with Nigeria’s state oil company NNPC and later as his country’s delegate to Opec before being elected secretary general of the Vienna-based producers’ club in 2016, he managed to remain above politics. When he took over stewardship of the organization, many had written off Opec as a spent force. Oil prices had collapsed a year earlier and the group’s market share was shrinking, making market management an almost impossible task. (CONTINUED - 1407 WORDS)
