Dr Ibrahim Al-Muhanna, an advisor to three Saudi Arabian oil ministers, will be the recipient of the Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award for the Advancement of International Petroleum Media after being the voice of the world’s largest oil exporter for over a quarter century.
Dr Al-Muhanna, who received his doctorate in 1987 from American University in Washington DC in international relationships, political economics and international communications, was essentially the only Saudi Arabian oil official available to the press who had an intimate awareness with the thinking of the Kingdom’s energy policy – this was communicated in an off-the-record fashion only attributable to a person known as the ‘Gulf Source’. His commentary played a vital role in navigating the world through many oil crises, including the collapse of prices to under US$10 in the late 1990s.
The lifetime achievement honour will be presented at the 3rd GCC Petroleum Media Forum Gala Dinner Awards in Abu Dhabi on 19 April 2017. The goals of the GCC Petroleum Media Forum are to enhance the knowledge competence of the communications professionals tasked with managing the industry’s messaging, while establishing better pathways for dialogue between government energy officials, the media and their industry subjects.
“Dr Al-Muhanna embodies all of the qualities that we are looking to advance in the GCC Petroleum Media Forum, such as increasing transparency and providing accurate market data and knowledge,” said the UAE’s minister of energy HE Suhail Al-Mazrouei, who will host this biennial knowledge exchange forum between the energy industry and the media that covers them.
The third edition of the Forum will be held Under the Patronage of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the president of the United Arab Emirates, and will take place during 19-20 April 2017 at the Abu Dhabi Rosewood Hotel. The featured speakers will include the energy ministers of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait, alongside 250 members of the media and regional energy industry.
Dr Al-Muhanna’s career, which will forever be framed alongside his former boss, Saudi Arabian oil minister Ali Al-Naimi, spanned the crash in oil prices to US$10 a barrel in 1998 and a market recovery choreographed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that eventually saw crude surge to a record high of US$147 in 2008 – all in which Dr Al-Muhanna played a central role, industry analysts and journalists agreed.
“For several decades, Dr Al-Muhanna provided a window into the world of Saudi energy – we journalists had his mobile number on speed dial, and failure to get hold of him whenever there was a major development in Saudi Arabia or during frantic OPEC meetings could turn even seasoned reporters into nervous wrecks,” said Margaret McQuaile, who led OPEC news coverage for S&P Global Platts for more than 20 years.
Dr Al-Muhanna is chairman of Watan Investment and Securities Company. He has served as assistant professor at King Saud University. Since 1999, he has acted in the role of advisor to the minister of petroleum and mineral resources. Dr Al-Muhanna has several publications in Arabic and English to his credit, and regularly participates as a key speaker in many seminars and international conferences.
