Purnomo OPEC president, interim secretary-general

Purnomo OPEC president, interim secretary-general

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro
has been installed as president and interim secretary-general of
the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

At the last minute of its ministerial meeting early Friday in
Vienna, the oil cartel chose Purnomo as interim secretary-general
as the organization failed to agree on one of three candidates
proposed during the meeting.

"It was a surprise to me," Purnomo was quoted by Detik.Com
online news portal as saying.

Purnomo said he was likely to assign one of his assistants at
the ministry or the most senior official of OPEC to assist him in
carrying out his tasks as secretary-general at OPEC's
headquarters in Vienna.

A secretary-general, an important position in the
organization, is appointed for three years and his or her
mandate can be extended only once.

In principle he or she does not interfere with policy-making,
which remains in the hands of the ministers, but can influence
the efficiency of the cartel, which controls about one-third of
the world's oil supply.

The secretary-general acts as OPEC's spokesman and organizes
its day-to-day running.

As president, Purnomo will preside over all OPEC meetings
throughout next year.

During the ministerial meeting, three countries -- Iran,
Kuwait and Venezuela -- were fighting to assume the secretary-
general position. Iran's and Kuwait's candidates were,
respectively, Hadi Nejad Hosseinian and Adnan Shihab-Eldin, while
Venezuela sought a second term for the current secretary-general,
Alvaro Silva-Calderon.

The meeting, however, failed to reach a consensus in selecting
one of the three, Purnomo said, citing an unbridgeable
disagreement among OPEC's members of the Middle East as the main
reason.

"A secretary-general is the most difficult to choose at OPEC.
Sometimes, it takes seven years for all members to reach an
agreement on the matter," he said

Purnomo, who received a doctoral degree from the University of
Colorado in the U.S., is the second Indonesian to assume a top
position at OPEC. The first Indonesian to make such an
achievement was Soebroto, who was secretary-general from 1988 to
1994.

OPEC ministers decided on Thursday to maintain the cartel's
output ceiling and to cut in early 2004 to shore up oil prices.