Nigeria

OPEC’s Secretary-General Barkindo dies

cde.news desk 6 July 2022, 08:28 · 1 min read

epa05989914 Opec Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo gestures during a news conference at the Opec headquarters in Vienna, Austria, 25 May 2017. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries hold their 172nd ordinary meeting and the 2nd Opec and non-Opec producing countries ministerial meeting in Vienna. EPA/LISI NIESNER

ABUJA, July 6 (Reuters) – OPEC’s Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo has died, Mele Kyari, the chief executive of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp said on Wednesday.

Barkindo, who was 63 years old, was due to step down at the end of this month after six years as OPEC’s secretary-general.

“We lost our esteemed Dr Muhammad Sanusi Barkindo,” Kyari said on Twitter, adding that he died late on Tuesday.

The death was a “great loss to his immediate family, the NNPC, our country Nigeria, the OPEC and the global energy community,” he added.

Kyari said Barkindo died hours after meeting Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari and giving the main speech at an energy summit in Abuja.

Barkindo said the oil and gas industry is “under siege” due to years of under-investment, adding that the resulting supply shortage could be eased if extra production from Iran and Venezuela was allowed to flow.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli, Maha El Dahan in Dubai, Nadine Awadalla in Cairo and MacDonald Dzirutwe in Abuja; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Louise Heavens)

Photo – Opec Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo gestures during a news conference at the Opec headquarters in Vienna, Austria. EPA/LISI NIESNER