OPEC Secretary-General Mohammad Barkindo passes away

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Secretary-General, Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, passed away on Tuesday in his home country, Nigeria.

Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Secretary-General, Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, passed away on Tuesday in his home country, Nigeria. "He was the much-loved leader of the OPEC Secretariat and his passing is a profound loss to the entire OPEC Family, the oil industry and the international community," tweeted OPEC Secretariat.

Barkindo was due to step down at the end of this month after six years in the top job at the OPEC. Barkindo was visiting his home country Nigeria to attend an energy conference in the capital city of Abuja, according to an OPEC press release.

Mele Kyari, head of Nigeria's National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), tweeted on Wednesday morning that Barkindo died at about 11 pm (2200 GMT) on Tuesday. Barkindo's death is "certainly a great loss to his immediate family, the NNPC, our country Nigeria, the OPEC and the global energy community. Burial arrangements will be announced shortly," Kyari added.

OPEC said on Twitter on Wednesday that Barkindo's death is "a shock to the OPEC family." "He was the much-loved leader of the OPEC Secretariat and his passing is a profound loss to the entire OPEC family, the oil industry and the international community," said OPEC.

Born in April 1959 in northeast Nigeria's Adamawa state, Barkindo assumed the office of the OPEC Secretary-General in 2016. His tenure was scheduled to expire in July. OPEC is a permanent, intergovernmental organization, created at the Baghdad Conference in 1960, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.

It aims to manage the supply of oil in an effort to set the price of oil in the world market, in order to avoid fluctuations that might affect the economies of both producing and purchasing countries. It is headquartered in Vienna, Austria.

OPEC membership is open to any country that is a substantial exporter of oil and which shares the ideals of the organization. (ANI)