OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo died 5 July in his home country of Nigeria. He was 63. The head of Nigeria’s National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, announced the news in a tweet on 6 July, which was later confirmed by OPEC.
Barkindo was appointed secretary general of OPEC in 2016 and reappointed for a second term in 2019. He was completing his current term by the end of this month and was to hand over the role to Haitham Al-Ghais, a veteran oil official from Kuwait.
A well-respected diplomat, Barkindo served OPEC for 40 years in various capacities. In 1986, he was appointed to Nigeria’s delegation to OPEC, and from 1993 to 2008, he represented Nigeria on the organization’s Economic Commission Board. In 2006, he was acting OPEC secretary general, and represented Nigeria on OPEC’s Board of Governors from 2009 to 2010.
From 2009 to 2010, he was group managing director and CEO of NNPC. Before that, he served as deputy managing director of Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas. Earlier in his career, he was special advisor to former Minister of Petroleum Resources and OPEC Secretary General Rilwanu Lukman.
Barkindo was a leader of Nigeria’s technical delegation to the UN climate change negotiations since 1991. He served as chair of the Group of 77 and China at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and was elected to serve three terms as vice president of the Conference of the Parties (COP)–COP13 (Bali, Indonesia), COP14 (Poznan, Poland), and COP15 (Copenhagen, Denmark), where he chaired the opening session.
“Throughout HE Barkindo’s long career, there have been several central themes that have driven him: an infectious passion for the petroleum industry; an unwavering belief in oil’s poverty-eradicating potential; a steadfast commitment to sustainable development; the importance of dialogue and multilateralism; and, most fundamentally of all, treating everyone with respect and kindness,” said a statement by the OPEC Secretariat. Through diplomacy, Barkindo furthered dialogue and cooperation of the organization with a variety of industry stakeholders to successfully navigate through two major industry downturns during 2015–2016 and 2020–2021. He played a key role in forming the organization’s historic Declaration of Cooperation at the end of 2016, where for the first time, OPEC member countries coordinated with 11 non-OPEC oil-producing countries to accelerate the stabilization of the global oil market. The outcomes of these meetings led to the largest and longest voluntary production adjustments in the history of the oil sector, according to OPEC.
At the end of his term at OPEC, Barkindo was due to join the US think tank Atlantic Council as a Distinguished Fellow at the Global Energy Center. “A true leader, diplomat, and collaborator, his contributions to energy security, governance of the global oil market, and open dialogue during a period of profound change for energy producers and consumers alike will have a lasting impact,” said the Council.