OPEC Set to Delay Talks on Secretary-General Until October

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is likely to delay a meeting of the group’s governors intended to discuss the selection of a new secretary general until October, an OPEC delegate said.

The discussions were initially scheduled for the end of this month. An exact date in October has not been determined, said the delegate, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. The organization supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil.

Ministers will make a final decision at the OPEC meeting in December. Saudi Arabia, the group’s biggest producer, is vying with Iran, Iraq and Ecuador to replace Libya’s Abdalla el-Badri, who will complete a second three-year term at the end of this year, with its candidate.

Saudi Arabia nominated its former OPEC governor, Majid al- Moneef, while Iran selected Gholamhossein Nozari, a former oil minister, Iraq, OPEC’s second-biggest producer, is backing Thamir Ghadhban, another former oil minister. Ecuador, the organization’s smallest producer, nominated Oil Minister Wilson Pastor.

OPEC’s members are Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Venezuela.

To contact the reporter on this story: Grant Smith in London at gsmith52@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net