KUWAIT - Profile - First Deputy Premier & FM Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Jabir Al Sabah.

Shaikh Sabah is the Emir's brother and his trusted assistant. As foreign minister, he outlines the regional and international implications of Kuwait's oil policies, among others. Shaikh Sabah is a key member of the SPC, which was created in 1974 by the Emir, and is occasionally its acting chairman. Since oil is one of the main elements of the emirate's foreign policy, his advice to the SPC is of special importance.

Shaikh Saud's record as oil minister so far has been spotless, until two recent mishaps that hit Kuwait's refining sector. On June 18, there was a gas leak at the Shuaiba refinery which killed two Kuwaitis, and a week later on June 26 there was a massive blast at the Mina Al Ahmadi refinery which has left the plant nearly in ruins. Shaikh Saud offered to resign on June 26 - admiting political responsibility - but his offer has not been accepted, at the urging of other ministers and some parliament deputies, who were virtually unanimous in regarding the resignation offer as being in the right spirit. Chances are that Shaikh Saud will retain his position for the foreseeable future.

Shaikh Saud is the sixth oil minister and KPC chairman since the Gulf crisis. He predecessor Issa Mohammed Al Mazidi was appointed to the post on Oct. 15, 1996, as part of a cabinet reshuffle following parliamentary elections held on Oct. 7. Shaikh Saud was brought in to reinforce the oil ministry and KPC and to speed up the process of involving the big multinational companies in Kuwait's upstream sector.

In December 1998 Shaikh Saud established a committee to examine recommended options for foreign companies to develop Kuwait's oilfields under service contracts. The committee was also to co-ordinate with and get reports from parliament's legal, financial and technical sub-committees. It was to come up with the best model for foreign participation. A 20/25-year "incentivised buy-back contract" (IBBC) was worked out with the help of Coopers & Lybrand and was approved by the SPC as an alternative to a production sharing agreement (PSA) or concessions, prohibited by the current constitution's Article 152.

Practical and now well informed in oil matters, Shaikh Saud has not made any major administrative changes at the oil ministry or in KPC. He is on excellent terms with KPC's top management, particularly KPC's CEO Nader Sultan. With the SPC being the real decision maker for the oil sector, he has studied the various aspects of the business extensively.

As a result, Shaikh Saud gives illuminating and well balanced interviews to the press, explaining Kuwait's oil policies and projects in detail. He is a good talker and, with the help of experienced advisors, has become an excellent negotiator. He is precise as well as being a seasoned diplomat.

Shaikh Saud has backed proposals to restructure KPC made by the corporation's CEO Sultan and other top executives. The SPC has accepted Saud's recommendations in that respect and a review committee was set up in 1998.

Shaikh Saud had said shortly after becoming oil minister in 1998 KPC should become a modern international oil company and stated: "The whole structure should have been looked at a long time ago in order to create a better environment for greater productivity in the future. The problem we have always faced is that each entity [within KPC] is governed by a different law... Some of the [KPC) companies - KOC and KNPC - should be subsidiaries of KPC rather than to some extent independent companies. If you look at the structure of all the oil companies in the world...they all have divisions within the mother company".

A skilled diplomat, Shaikh Saud has played a major role in OPEC's efforts since early 1998 to defend oil prices through production cuts. He was among the few OPEC ministers to insist on further production cuts in early 1999 in order to come up with a credible price defence strategy, also advocating production cut co-operation by non-OPEC states.

His efforts and those of his Algeria, Iranian, Saudi and other OPEC counterparts resulted in an agreement in The Hague on March 12, 1999, under which big production cuts were to be made by OPEC and four non-OPEC states from April 1, 1999 to end-March 2000. On June 21, 2000, OPEC members agreed to boost production to bring prices down to a "reasonable" target level of $25/barrel.

Shaikh Saud belongs to a distant branch of the ruling Al Sabah family. He built up his career as a barrister and graduated from a London university. In the late 1970s he joined Kuwait's diplomatic corps and was promoted quickly at the foreign ministry. In 1981 he became Kuwait's ambassador to Washington, where he was later to develop a strong pro-Kuwait lobby which helped in the liberation of the emirate from Iraq's occupation in early 1991. After he was promoted to information minister in 1992, Shaikh Saud became chief spokesman for Kuwait and one of the pillars of the government under Premier and Crown Prince Shaikh Saad Al Abdullah Al Sabah. In the October 1996 cabinet reshuffle, Shaikh Saud was also made acting minister of health. That was briefly after he assumed the additional role as acting oil minister.

Outspoken on security matters, Shaikh Saud has defended Kuwait's military pacts with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (the US, UK, France, Russia & China), saying on several occasions there was no longer sufficient trust among the Arabs for mutual defence. His brother Shaikh Sabah Al Nasser Al Sabah has been assistant undersecretary of defence for military installations and was one of the "insider" resistance figures during Iraq's occupation of Kuwait.

However, in November 1997 as information minister Shaikh Saud caused a big uproar by organising a book fair in Kuwait which displayed works considered un-Islamic. Islamists in parliament on March 15, 1998 forced Premier Shaikh Saad's 15-member cabinet to resign, as they insisted on removing Shaikh Saud from office. But a few days later Shaikh Saad made Shaikh Saud oil minister in a cabinet reshuffle.