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Oil prices

The most powerful man you've never heard of

Wednesday, 16 November 2016 Nehad Ismail

Nehad Ismail, who has spent a career connected to the oil business reviews 'Out of the Desert: My Journey from Nomadic Bedouin to the Heart of Global Oil' by Ali Al-Naimi

NU BookAli Al-Naimi is the former Saudi oil minister between August 1995 and May 2016. Besieged by journalists before and after every OPEC meeting in Vienna and elsewhere his remarks moved markets and were dissected by oil experts.


Al-Naimi was born in a humble desert tent in 1935. He was brought up as a nomadic Bedouin. He was 3 and Saudi Arabia was only 5 years old when vast quantities of oil were being discovered by American companies.


Described by Alan Greenspan the ex US Fed chairman as 'the most powerful man you've never heard of'. Al-Naimi's incredible journey proves that anyone can make it - even a poor Bedouin shepherd boy.

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