SHEIKH ZAKI YAMANI, ARCHITECT OF 1973 OIL EMBARGO, DIES AT 91

Saudi Arabia’s Sheikh Zaki Yamani, the embodiment of the ascent of Arab petroleum power and the face of the 1973 oil embargo that brought the West to its knees, has died, Rania El Gamal reported for Reuters.

Yamani was a witness to the 1975 murder of the Saudi king who had plucked him, a non-royal, from obscurity to be oil minister. Later the same year, Yamani was kidnapped at an OPEC meeting by Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez, known as Carlos the Jackal.

Yamani, 91, died in London, Saudi state media reported on Tuesday.

Known for his elegant manner and trademark goatee beard, Yamani’s 24-year tenure running the oil affairs of the world’s biggest crude producer made him a global celebrity during the inflationary “oil shocks” of the 1970s.

That ended with his abrupt sacking in 1986 after a costly attempt to prop up crude prices, a failed strategy which has cast a shadow over Saudi oil policy to this day. In December 1975, Yamani attended the meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Vienna, which ended in a hail of bullets fired into the ceiling from Venezuelan assassin Carlos and five cohorts. Three bystanders were killed.

Carlos, promoting the Palestinian cause, targeted Yamani as the most valuable hostage, telling him repeatedly that he had been sentenced to death. Ministers were held for two days in a dynamite-charged room before the captors were granted a plane out of Austria with their hostages.

A further 43 harrowing hours on board, flying from Algeria to Libya and back, created an intimacy between captive and hostage taker. “It was odd, but as we sat together and talked, it was almost as if we had become friends,” Yamani told biographer Jeffrey Robinson.

“He was telling me so much, knowing that I would die.” A deal was struck in Algiers and Carlos vanished, escaping arrest until 1994. Months earlier, Yamani was at the side of Saudi King Faisal in Riyadh, receiving a visiting delegation when a disaffected Saudi prince pulled out a revolver and shot the king dead.

Reuters interviewed Yamani in September 2000 to mark OPEC’s 40th anniversary. Shale oil was little known at the time and renewables were in their infancy, but Yamani predicted that technology would hurt oil producers.

“Technology is a real enemy for OPEC,” he said. “Technology will reduce consumption and increase production from areas outside OPEC. The real victims will be Saudi Arabia, with huge reserves which they can do nothing with. “The Stone Age did not end because the world ran out of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.”

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