LONDON/DUBAI – OPEC remains in a stalemate over selecting its next secretary general, delegates to the producer group said Tuesday after a two-day meeting. A panel of officials met at the Vienna headquarters of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries on Monday and Tuesday, to advise OPEC oil ministers on who should succeed Abdullah Al-Badri, whose term in the job ends in December. “No progress was made on a single name recommendation,” one of the delegates said, declining to be identified as the talks are confidential. “Now it is up to the ministers.” OPEC has often struggled to agree on a secretary general. This time the task comes as Western sanctions on Iran have heightened political tensions within the group. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Ecuador have all nominated candidates. The panel consists mainly of OPEC governors - oil officials who represent their countries on the group's board of governors. Part of its work included interviewing each candidate, an OPEC source said. OPEC delegates say the four candidates are Saudi Arabia's OPEC governor, Majid Al-Moneef; Thamir Ghadhban, energy adviser to Iraq's prime minister; former Iranian oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari; and the oil minister of Ecuador, Wilson Pastor. – Reuters
