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OPEC job is challenging – Alison-Madueke

By BusinessNews Staff on December 5, 2014

The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has admitted that it is challenging for her to take over as the President of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries at this period when there is a sharp drop in oil prices.

Alison-Madueke, who was elected the first female president of the organisation last week, spoke with State House correspondents on Wednesday at the end of the weekly Federal Executive Council meeting.

She said it was a challenging time for the organisation because there had been a battle of wits among certain OPEC countries, the big players and certain non-OPEC countries who are big players in the world crude oil production markets.

The minister however said her prayer for the organisation under her leadership was to be able to stabilise oil prices at this critical time.

She said, “It is a challenging time to take over as OPEC President and our prayer of course is that we will be able to stabilise the crude oil prices per barrel over this period because it is critical as many countries, both OPEC and non-OPEC countries, are suffering immensely.

“Even as we speak, Venezuela has gone into austerity measures because they are completely dependent on oil.

“Angola, Algeria and Iran are all under stress as it is Nigeria because it has affected our budgetary benchmark.”

The minister said as the President, she would be watching events closely and decide at which point she would call for an extraordinary meeting of the organisation to see whether other strategies could be adopted.

On how Nigeria is going to benefit from her new position, the minister said that would go along her ministry’s position that the country had to be more competitive at this time and in future.

She said, “We cannot continue to do business as usual. We must ensure that we have the right enabling parameters and indices in this country to attract the right end user markets, end user demand for our products because there are so many other countries that would be competing for those end user markets and to get that end user demand.

“So we will have to sit down and reformulate our entire approach over the next month or so, in fact immediately to ensure that we are in fact at the cutting edge of competitiveness.

“We will make ourselves competitive in the market and we are able to garner and take those end user markets.”

Alison-Madueke said her appointment could not have come to fruition if the President had not had the courage to appoint a woman as the Minister of Petroleum Resources.

That appointment, she explained, made her to head the country’s delegation to OPEC.

“I must say that that was a daunting thing, it happened about three-and-half years ago. I went into a body which is completely male-dominated and mostly Arab-dominated as well. But I have found that they have come to respect me and respect Nigeria’s voice over the last three years in OPEC very highly,” she added.

Meanwhile, the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on Wednesday distanced its Group Managing Director, Dr. Joseph Dawha, from a running Facebook account opened in his name by people it described as “nondescript scam artistes.”

[Punch]

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