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Former Saudi oil minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani died today in the British capital, London, aged 90, and the country’s state television announced his body will be buried in Al Cemetery -Mualla in Mecca.
‘Godfather of black gold’
Ahmed Zaki Yamani was born in Mecca in 1930, and after graduating from high school there, he went to Egypt and obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree from Cairo University in 1952 and in 1955 he graduated from Cairo University. obtained a scholarship to study law in the United States in New York. Institute of Law.
In 1956 he obtained a Master of Laws degree from Harvard University, after which he obtained a doctorate from the University of Exeter, UK.
His father was a scholar of religion and a judge in the Hijaz, and later he became a mufti in Indonesia and Malaysia. As for his grandfather, he was mufti in Turkey.
The family has been nicknamed “Yamani”, after the origins of their ancestors who immigrated from Yemen to Saudi Arabia.
His career
Yamani was legal adviser to the Saudi Council of Ministers in 1958. Then he became minister of petroleum and mineral resources in 1962 and held office for a quarter of a century until 1986.
In 1988, he founded the Center for Global Energy Studies and the Al-Furqan Center for Islamic Heritage in London in 1990.
He has been called “Godfather of Black Gold” for his leading role in the development of the oil industry in Saudi Arabia, as he was the first Secretary General to be appointed head of OPEC, and he has contributed to the development of many organizations. laws.
He was also known in the 1970s as the architect of the Arab world campaign to control the energy resources of Arab countries, and he was one of the most powerful influencers during OPEC, which regulated the production of energy and pricing policies in its member states.
In an era of turbulent energy policy, Yamani, a Harvard-trained lawyer, spoke on behalf of the oil-producing Arab countries on the world stage. The oil industry has been spared the successive revolutions that have taken place in the region, such as the Arab-Israeli wars, the Islamic revolution in Iran, and other political turmoil in the region.
And global demand for oil has pushed the governments of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states into unimaginable rich worlds.
Published image, Getty Images
Saudi Petroleum Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani (center) and members of his accompanying delegation at the opening ceremony of the 59th session during the last session of the OPEC conference in Kuta Beach, Indonesia on December 15, 1980.
Yamani has traveled between the continents of the world from Europe, Asia and America to promote Arab oil interests. He has met with heads of government and appeared in numerous interviews on international television screens in Arab costume at times and in European costume at other times.
As Saudi Arabia’s oil minister for a quarter of a century, he was among the most powerful figures with some of the world’s largest oil reserves. He was also the dominant official of OPEC, whose high and low production quotas oscillated in world markets.
During his tenure, he witnessed notable historical events, including the declaration of the Gulf states and the organization of “OPEC” oil embargoes against the United States and other countries that supported “Israel” during the October 1973 war.
At that point, Yamani threatened to blow up Saudi oil wells if the United States invaded his country to control its oil wells.
Published image, Getty Images
File photo: Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani meeting with the late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi during talks in New Delhi.
In 1988, he established the “Al-Furqan Foundation for Islamic Heritage” affiliated with the “Yamani Charitable Foundation”, with the aim of preserving historical Islamic works and presenting them to the world.
In 1990 he established the Center for Global Energy Studies in London, which analyzes markets to provide objective data and information on energy issues.
Yamani was fluent in French and English, in addition to Arabic, and was a contemporary of four Saudi kings and represented them in OPEC.
A hostage in Vienna
Yamani was taken hostage in 1975, in the Austrian capital, Vienna, where the OPEC headquarters is located, by Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, a Venezuelan known as Carlos the Fox.
There were a total of 60 hostages, including 13 OPEC ministers.
Carlos divided the ministers into three sections: friendly countries, enemy countries and neutral third parties. At that time, he asked the Austrian government to broadcast a statement on radio stations announcing its support for the Palestinian cause, in addition to providing planes and buses to transport the hostages to the airport.
The kidnapping process lasted about two days, then ministers and a number of delegations from other countries were transported by bus to an abandoned airport, and they were taken with him to Algeria, and negotiations took place. with Algerian officials who managed to convince the kidnappers to release all the hostages in exchange for conditional aid.
Yamani and Jamshid Osgar, his Iranian counterpart, were the last hostages to be released at the time.
Yamani left his mark in history as the man who played a decisive role in OPEC, which was dominated by the economic policies of Western countries before Yamani led the oil embargo which caused a major crisis for the West in 1973.
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