Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison Madueke, said she was taking over the presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) at a challenging period.
Mrs. Alison Madueke was elected OPEC president at the organization’s meeting in Vienna, Austria last week.
She however expressed optimism that the organization under her watch will stabilize oil prizes in the global market.
The Minister told State House correspondents on Wednesday, “This is a very challenging time as you know for OPEC and for the global crude oil wells as a whole. Quite clearly, there has been a battle of wills between certain OPEC countries, the big players and certain non-OPEC countries who are big players in the world crude oil production markets at this time.
“Many countries both OPEC and non-OPEC countries are suffering immensely. Even as we speak, Venezuela has gone into austerity measures and is measuring food because they were completely dependent on oil.
“Angola, Algeria Iran are all under duress as is Nigeria because it has affected our budgetary benchmark. And even non-OPEC countries like Russia who will not cut production are already seeing a drop in the value of their rubble.
“So it is quite impacting on OPEC prices and what OPEC does in the global oil market. And so we will be watching very closely as president of OPEC at this time at what point we have to call OPEC Extra Ordinary meeting and reconvene to see whether other strategies can be put into play.”
On what Nigeria stands to benefit from her OPEC presidency, she promised to use her position to ensure Nigeria becomes more competitive in the oil market in order to be able to weather the storm of the current crisis.
Alison Madueke spoke further, “We cannot continue to do business as usual. We must ensure that we have the right enabling parameters and indicies in this country to attract the right end user markets, end user demand for our products because they are so many other countries that would be competing for those end user markers 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 make ourselves competitive in the market and we are able to garner and take those end user markets.
