The good days of Ali Al-Naimi

Saudi oil ministers are always powerful figures. They are selected wisely and carefully because they are the oil diplomats whose words represent the official line of the country and move markets.

Ali Al-Naimi, or Abu Rami as he is known, was one of those powerful men, who filled the streets and hotel lobbies of Vienna with vigor.

I’m proud to be one of those oil reporters who followed him from one country and from one hotel lobby to another.

Contrary to what people think about him, I really didn’t believe that he liked the media. He was a friend of the media and knew very well how to keep them at bay, but there is a big difference between the two. He liked the media on sunny days when it didn’t rain and the market was not in turmoil.

His distaste grew with time and, from the end of 2014 until he left his post in 2016, he made it public that he no longer liked the media.

It all started in 2014, when many new reporters appeared in Vienna and started walking with him in the early morning during his usual walks around the city’s ring road. Some didn’t know how to handle his off-record comments.

The result was bad, and it’s hard to forget that meeting in the fall of 2014 when he was furious at all the reporters and asking them to leave the room.

At the second Gulf Cooperation Council petroleum media conference, which was held in Riyadh in 2015, he made it clear that he didn’t enjoy the company of reporters on his morning walk, even though that was a long tradition.

To be honest, the media was never handled right by OPEC officials, but few like Al-Naimi and his counterpart Abdulla Al-Attiyah knew their way.

That short man from Al-Raka who started with humble beginnings was a giant. He will always have a place in our memories and hearts.

Wael Mahdi

Handling the oil media is a tough business. It is a never-ending fight between a married couple, and every side must learn how to accept and coexist with the other. There are no winners and losers. It’s all business. As long as there are defined lines and respected space, things will go well. But once one side invades the privacy of the other, things go south.

I always had this guilt about being among the last batch of reporters who dealt with him during his last days. We were the outcast ones. I always viewed him as a father figure and had this urge to do anything to make him happy again. 

I even traveled to Qatar in 2016 to attend his honoring by the Al-Attiyah Foundation for his long achievements in OPEC. I came to him after the ceremony ended and I kissed his forehead, a symbol of seeking forgiveness in our culture. He smiled and I left in peace that day.

Vienna is a beautiful city but, to an oil reporter, it comes to life only when Saudi oil ministers show up.

I always felt that energy in the air once Al-Naimi was in Vienna, and I enjoyed every moment waiting for his arrival, no matter how late or difficult it was to get to him. I wasn’t only looking for a headline, I was looking for a piece of history, wisdom, and knowledge. Thank god I got many of those from him.

Unfortunately, to his entourage, I was just another one of those troublemakers looking for a headline to move the market and bring prices down. I was never welcomed because of that.

Things have changed dramatically since his time. OPEC is no longer the driving force, it is OPEC+. No morning walks with ministers. Vienna itself is seeing more electric vehicles, and demand for oil will peak sometime in the next 10 to 15 years, a prophecy held by Al-Naimi a long time back when he told the reporters who were influenced by the peak oil theory that he believed demand would peak ahead of supply.

Now, after all these years, I still miss those days, the days of Al-Naimi. I miss his quotes that made headlines like: “Only God knows the price of oil,” “That’s the worst meeting I ever attended,” and “I’m not retiring anytime soon.”

Vienna was always about him. That short man from Al-Raka who started with humble beginnings was a giant. He will always have a place in our memories and hearts.

• Wael Mahdi is senior business editor at Arab News and co-author of “OPEC in a shale oil world: Where to next?”

Twitter: @waelmahdi