Hamisu Muhammad With Agency Report
17 March 2010
In the last 50 years of its existence the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has been protecting its members from undue exploitation by the international oil companies, Nigeria's Minister of Petroleum, Dr Rilwanu Lukman has said.
Lukman said OPEC has helped in stabilizing the prices of crude oil at the international market.
"Hence, protecting member countries from undue exploitation by the international oil companies," he said.
The minister revealed this when he arrived in Vienna on Tuesday for the 156th Ordinary Meeting of the OPEC Conference, while fielding questions from the OPEC News Crew.
OPEC was founded in September 1960 and is billed to celebrate its golden jubilee this year. One major milestone to mark the event was Wednesday's inauguration of the New OPEC Secretariat, built and handed over to the organization by the Austrian government.
Lukman said that the 50-year old organization has played a prominent role in ensuring stability of the international crude oil market noting that it has weathered the storm so far in spite of efforts to frustrate it.
"Walking the OPEC memory lane, the body's greatest achievement in its 50 years of operation is survival, despite all the odds and influences to bring it down. The second achievement is the way it has been able to achieve its goals in the last 50 years of its existence and how the organization has also been able to check-mate the international oil companies (IOCs)," Dr. Lukman observed.
He said that notwithstanding the pressure from the outside to frustrate the so-called "cartel" as some interest groups would rather call the organization, OPEC had survived this long and remained resolute in projecting its policies and programmes.
Dr. Lukman maintained that OPEC had always ensured that citizens of member-states received a fair deal from the development and production of their hydrocarbon resources by these IOCs.
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