Word: yamani
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After the meeting broke up, the oil producers began a tense waiting game to see which one would be the first to slash prices. At a press conference, Yamani predicted that Britain, a non-OPEC producer, would take the lead within a few days by trimming $2 or $3 off its $33.50 charge for North Sea oil. He said that Nigeria, an OPEC member that has had particular trouble selling oil recently, might then feel forced to follow Britain's lead. If that happened, Yamani hinted, the Saudis might themselves shave a few dollars off their...
...quota cheating and price discounting. Pressure on the Saudis reached a peak last month. Their four main oil-company customers-Exxon, Mobil, Texaco and Standard Oil of California-threatened to turn to other suppliers if the Saudis did not lower their price. At conferences in London and Geneva, Yamani huddled with top executives from the four firms, who brought confidential figures to show the oil minister how much they were losing by staying with Saudi crude...
Before long, the Saudis made a last-ditch effort to seal the cracks in OPEC'S unity. At a meeting in Bahrain of seven of the organization's members, Yamani offered to lower the Saudis' production quota if the others would accept new ceilings and stick to them. The ministers reached a tentative agreement and decided to convene a full OPEC meeting in Geneva...
...such pronouncements proved to be premature. Without advance warning, the Saudis had tossed on the bargaining table an additional demand that remained to be resolved on Monday morning. They would curb production, said Yamani, only if the African states would charge a premium price for their oil that fully reflected its higher-than-average quality. Nigeria, Algeria and Libya produce so-called sweet crude, which yields a particularly desirable mix of products after refining. Moreover, because these countries are relatively close geographically to their European customers, the cost of transporting the crude is lower. For these reasons, the OPEC members...
...recent months, the Africans have not been charging a high enough premium to satisfy the Saudis. At the Geneva meeting, Yamani demanded that the Africans raise their prices in order to keep the Saudis from being noncompetitive when they try to sell their less desirable crude. The Africans balked at boosting prices at a time of sluggish demand, and the meeting disintegrated into a raucous round of name-calling. At one point, Yamani reportedly shouted: "I am a man of the desert, and nobody is going to laugh at my beard." That was the Arab equivalent of saying, "Nobody...