IRAQ - Profile - Saddam Al Zibn Al Hassan Al Majid.

President of SOMO, Saddam Al Hassan is a cousin of Saddam Hussein. He was appointed to this post by a presidential decree in late 1994. For the long term, his task is to regain Iraq's share of world oil markets when the UN sanctions are lifted. Now SOMO has a big number of obscure clients buying crude oil directly and paying in euro a surcharge worth about $0.25-30/barrel to an Iraqi bank account outside the UN framework. Then they sell the crude at a premium on the spot market.

SOMO is one of the few concerns in Iraq which have direct satellite communications facilities. It can be contacted by telex, telephone, fax or e-mail from any point in the world. Eventually, Oil Ministry officials say, Iraq would regain the OPEC production quota which it had in July 1990, i.e., almost 3.2m b/d.

Saddam Al Hassan is also Iraq's OPEC governor. He served as alternate chairman of OPEC's board of governors for 1996 and headed the board in 1997. The chairman in 1996 was Hossein Kazempour Ardebili of Iran. He is also referred to as "Al Takriti" because he comes from the town of Takrit, like Saddam Hussein and other members of the ruling family (though this family has been split by internal feuds since the killing in 1996 of Hussein Kamel Al Majid and his brother - Saddam Hussein's cousins and sons-in-law, after they had defected to Jordan - see Gas Market Trends). Previously, Saddam Al Hassan was a diplomat and a commercial attache at Iraq's embassies in Algiers and London. His advisors include Fadhil Osman, a prominent expert in oil marketing.

Fadhil Osman, now a top advisor to Saddam Al Hassan, was the previous head of SOMO. But he was only an acting CEO and previously was the deputy head under Dr. Ramzi Salman, the man who had built up SOMO into a major organisation since the late 1970s. Osman was made interim head of SOMO when Salman moved to Vienna as OPEC deputy secretary general. Osman went into retirement but was retained as advisor. He remains close to the Oil Ministry. Now Salman is a senior advisor to Qatar's energy minister.

SOMO maintains close co-ordination with the Oil Ministry and its executives take part in E&P negotiations with foreign oil firms. The deputy head of SOMO is Nafei Farjou. One assistant in SOMO is Saad Yassin Al Takriti.

Dr. Saadoun Hammadi, a former prime minister who once also served as oil and foreign minister, is one of the prominent experts whom President Saddam Hussein consults on strategic oil deals. He is the speaker of the National Assembly, first elected to this post after the parliamentary elections of late March 1996. He was re-elected after the 2000 polls. Dr. Hammadi is a leading Shiite technocrats in the Sunni-led Baathist regime. He graduated from the American University of Beirut and later became one of the most respected figures in the Arab World. He is often listened to by the top leadership.

Dr. Abdel Razzaq Al Hashimi, another presidential advisor, was Iraq's last ambassador to Paris and returned from that post shortly before the January 1991 war started. He is a geo-chemist. From the middle to the late 1980s, he was director general of the Iraqi Atomic Agency. He also became president of the general organisation of mineral surveys. Later he became minister of higher education and ambassador to Germany, then to France. Now, Dr. Al Hashimi holds the rank of state minister and is the head of the Foreign Relations Department at the Baath Party's Local Command. He is consulted on oil matters of strategic importance following up negotiations with major oil companies, notably including TotalFinaElf.