His Excellency Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo of
Nigeria assumed office today in his role as Secretary General of the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at the OPEC
Secretariat in Vienna, Austria.
Mr Barkindo was officially appointed to the
post for a three-year term at OPEC’s 169th Meeting of the Conference on 2 June
2016 in Vienna.
He replaces outgoing Secretary General HE
Abdalla Salem El-Badri who has led the Organization since 1 January 2007.
An accomplished oil technocrat and veteran of
OPEC, Mr Barkindo brings with him a wealth of experience in the oil and gas
industry, both in Nigeria and internationally.
From 2009 to 2010, he was Group Managing
Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Previous to
that, he served as Deputy Managing Director of Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas,
a joint venture between NNPC, Shell, Total and Eni. Earlier in his career, he
was Special Assistant to former Minister of Petroleum Resources and OPEC
Secretary General, HE Dr Rilwanu Lukman.
Mr Barkindo also worked in several key roles
at OPEC between 1986 and 2010. In 1986, he was appointed to Nigeria’s
delegation to OPEC, and from 1993 to 2008, served as Nigeria’s National
Representative on the Organization’s Economic Commission Board.
In 2006, he
served as Acting Secretary General of OPEC, and represented Nigeria on OPEC’s
Board of Governors from 2009 to 2010.
He has also helped produce the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto protocol as the
leader of Nigeria’s technical delegation to the UN negotiations since 1991.
He
also served as Vice President of COP15 in 2010, when he chaired the opening
session in Copenhagen attended by more than 100 heads of state and government.
He is the longest serving member of the country’s delegation to the UNFCCC. He
also served as Chairman of the OPEC Task Force of the United Nations Commission
on Sustainable Development for the 15th session.
After earning a bachelor’s degree in
political science from Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Mr Barkindo went on to
achieve a postgraduate diploma in petroleum economics and management from the
College of Petroleum Studies at Oxford University and a master’s degree in
business administration from Southeastern University in Washington, DC.
He is also a holder of an Honorable Doctorate
Degree in Science from Modibbo Adama, Federal University of Technology, Yola,
Nigeria.
He is a fellow member of various international petroleum institutions
such as the Institute of Petroleum, London.
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