Oil: Buhari meets Saudi energy minister on price stability

Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih met with President Muhammadu Buhari and discussed cooperation between the two OPEC member countries in the energy sector, the minister said in a tweet on Saturday.

Al-Falih said that he met with Buhari on the margins of the World Economic Forum on the Middle East and North Africa in Jordan.

They discussed “ways of cooperating in the fields of energy and industry, and the importance of cooperation for the stability of the global oil market.”

President Buhari attended the WEF at the invitation of King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein of Jordan.

He told the forum which opened at the Dead Sea on Saturday that world leaders must work towards narrowing gaps in social and economic opportunities for citizens as panacea to rising conflicts across the globe, attributing the Boko Haram terrorism in Nigeria to lack of inclusion.

He said rising opportunities of prosperity for some people while others struggle to survive trigger tensions and conflicts.

“It is at this point that we must ask ourselves how we, as a region, got to this point. The answer, at least in the case of Nigeria, is the lack of social and economic inclusion.

“As Nigeria celebrated being the largest economy in Africa and one of the fastest growing economies in the world, Nigerians were migrating in droves through harsh desert conditions and across treacherous seas to seek what they believe would be a better life in Europe.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I strongly believe that the lack of social and economic inclusion was the root cause of many challenges we are experiencing,’’ he said.

President Buhari said the changes taking place across the world in technology, population, migration, trade and geo-politics had been yielding both positive and negative results and called for more collaboration across borders to alter tides of frustrations that fuel conflicts.

“It is my view, that no region of the world has felt the full impact of these dramatic shifts and shocks like the Middle East and Africa – North and Sub-Sahara.

“On one hand, our region is blessed with a very young, vibrant, enterprising and dynamic population. We also have valuable natural resources that are the envy of many nations.

“These assets and endowments contributed to our region experiencing some of the highest economic growth rates in the world. On the other hand, however, we have also been hosts to some of the deadliest conflicts in recent history. The deaths, damages and destructions caused by terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, ISIS and Boko Haram over the last ten years will take decades to repair,’’ he added.