Word: yamani
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...historic petroleum price plunge of 1986 could be traced to September 1985, when Saudi Arabia got fed up with its dwindling share of the world's oil market and decided to reverse completely its traditional strategy of holding back production to prop up prices. Oil Minister Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani raised crude output from about 2 million bbls. a day to 4 million bbls. with the aim of forcing rival oil producers like Britain to cut back to make room for the Saudis. But when competitors refused to budge, the world's oil glut rapidly increased and discounting became rampant...
...Petroleum Exporting Countries. Crude prices plummeted from $26 per bbl. in January to below $10 in April and remained under $15 for most of the year. The low prices distressed the Saudi royal family and provoked anger from other OPEC countries, prompting the Saudis in October to oust Yamani as Oil Minister after he had spent two decades as a leading OPEC strategist. With that, the Saudis abandoned their price-war tactics. When OPEC met in December, twelve of its 13 members, with Iraq dissenting, decided to cut production and sell their various grades of oil at fixed prices averaging...
...much at ease in a tailored business suit as in a traditional flowing Bedouin thobe, or lengthy shirt, Yamani was the chief architect of the 1973-74 OPEC oil embargo. That historic action, which drastically cut back OPEC exports to several Western nations, including the U.S., more than quadrupled oil prices within 15 months and caused a severe global slump and then nearly a decade of rising inflation. By 1979, however, OPEC was already slipping from Saudi control. In that year the fall of the Shah of Iran led to a second worldwide oil shock, which nearly doubled prices once...
...energy experts pondered Yamani's ouster last week, many rose to the veteran minister's defense. They noted that while he is sometimes viewed as the West's inveterate enemy, Yamani has often taken conciliatory stances. "Since the last few years have seen a deterioration in Saudi revenues, he may have been used as a scapegoat," said Saad-Eddin Ibrahim, a professor of political sociology at the American University in Cairo...
Amid the furor, Yamani last week telephoned a close friend in Geneva, where OPEC meets and the former oil minister keeps an apartment. "What's there to say," Yamani remarked. "It's the King's decision, and that's life." He added that he would "be around" when the OPEC ministers reconvene in Geneva early in December. Yamani's friend was philosophical: "Here's one man who won't have to worry about keeping himself busy," he said. "Every headhunter ) in Big Oil must be after him." To be sure. Big Oil and Mr. Oil know each other well...