Did Gulf States Miss the Chance to Cut Their Oil Addiction?

Salim Al Aufi, Oman’s undersecretary for oil and gas, likens attempts to cut the reliance on oil during a price slump to acting “with a gun pointed at your head.”

If you have to make decisions under pressure, “you will probably make the wrong ones,” he said March 3 in Muscat during a panel discussion on the impact of the oil shock. Oman relied too much on revenue from crude exports when prices were high, he said.