Abu Dhabi - Part 4 - The Decision Makers.

Decision making in Abu Dhabi for oil and gas policies or projects involves a small number of people grouped in the Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC) and the board of Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC). The number of young Abu Dhabian university graduates joining the decision makers keeps rising.

Among the seven member-emirates of the UAE, Abu Dhabi is the only one which adheres to OPEC decisions. Although membership in OPEC is in the name of the UAE, Dubai and the others in the union act independently (see 2006 survey of the other UAE emirates in Vol. 66, Nos. 21-23).

Founder and President of the UAE, Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al-Nayhan, died on Nov. 2, 2004, at the age of 86. In the night on Nov. 1, he had signed his last decree: setting a new government for the union with a super-ministry incorporating the sectors of petroleum, mineral resources, electric power and water. This portfolio was given to Mohammed bin Dha'en al-Hamili, who replaced Obeid bin Saif al-Nassiri. The latter used to be minister of petroleum and mineral resources.

The succession to the top leadership was exceptionally smooth, thanks to an order of priorities established by Shaikh Zayed years earlier. His first son and long-standing crown prince, Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed immediately became the ruler of Abu Dhabi on Nov. 2 and his half-brother and deputy crown prince, Shaikh Muhammad bin Zayed, became the crown prince and chairman of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council (local cabinet). Partly thanks to Dubai's strongman Shaikh Muhammad bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who moved swiftly on the side of the new Abu Dhabi ruler, Shaikh Khalifa on Nov. 3, 2004 was unanimously elected as president of the UAE by the Supreme Council of the union of the seven emirates.

However, the strongman in Abu Dhabi is Shaikh Muhammad bin Zayed. Together and his younger full-brothers control all the vital sectors, with the exception of Petroleum and the SPC (see the political leadership in Gas Market Trends).

On Dec. 8, 2004, Shaikh Khalifa effected the biggest restructuring of the Abu Dhabi government for decades, drastically reducing the number of departments (local ministries) and the size of the Executive Council, as well as injecting new and younger blood (see Downstream Trends).

Muhammad bin Dha'en al-Hamili, as the UAE minister of energy, is the man in charge of Abu Dhabi's commitments to OPEC, OAPEC and other multilateral organisations in which the emirate is a full member. This is apart from his responsibility as the man in charge of the energy sector in the whole of the UAE.

On Nov. 21, 2004, Hamili stated that the UAE will maintain its oil policy and there were no changes to take place. In his first statement to the Emirates News Agency (WAM) after assuming his new post, he said the UAE policy in energy was based on clear and well-founded grounds of utilising petroleum revenues to achieve comprehensive development in the union. He said the UAE will continue to fulfill its obligation to produce sufficient supplies of petroleum in a way that would achieve stability in international markets and the global economy as well as safeguard the interests of both the producers and consumers.

Hamili, aged 53, is a petroleum industry veteran who has been a member of the Supreme Petroleum Council (SPC), the body in charge of the petroleum sector in Abu Dhabi (see profiles on the following pages). He was the UAE's governor in OPEC from 1994 to 2002.

Having once served as UAE deputy minister of petroleum and mineral resources, Hamili was previously in charge of the Marketing and Refining Directorate at the state-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (ADNOC), a post he held since 1998. So he is not new to the federal government. He was also board chairman or member of several companies. He graduated with an advanced management degree from Harvard Business School.