Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq vie for OPEC’s top job as Ecuador bows out

Ecuador has quietly withdrawn its candidacy for the post of OPEC secretary general, a decision apparently made some time back but not made public until December 4.

That leaves OPEC’s top three producers–Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran–fighting for the organization’s top administrative post on which ministers should, in theory, make a decision when they meet in Vienna on December 12 to agree oil output levels for the year ahead.

If the bookmakers were taking bets on any of the three candidates, the odds would be very long indeed, not because any of the three nominees might be unsuited to the post but because of the political in-fighting that has for years characterized the effort to appoint a secretary general.

In some ways, Ecuador, which had nominated current oil minister Wilson Pastor-Morris, might have provided OPEC with the means to agree a compromise. It’s nowhere near the Middle East and it has crude production of just 500,000 b/d. But oil minister Wilson Pastor-Morris, when telling reporters in Quito that he had dropped his bid to succeed Libya’s Abdalla el-Badri in Vienna, said his chances had been slim given Ecuador’s marginal role as a producer.

Pastor said he was withdrawing “so that there can be more unity.” But unless another candidate emerges with the potential to draw the unanimous support of all 12 member countries, it seems unlikely that there will be unity around any one of the remaining three.

Saudi Arabia’s candidate is Majid Moneef, the country’s former representative on OPEC’s governing board. Iran and Iraq have both nominated former oil ministers, Gholamhossein Nozari and Thamer Ghadban.

If OPEC does fail to agree on a new secretary general, it has other two options: It can ask Badri, who has been in the job for the maximum six years, to stay on while efforts continue to find a successor; or it can ask Kuwait, which assumes the OPEC presidency next year, to take charge of the Vienna secretariat.