Saudi Oil Minister Following the biggest news of this weekend, the (anticipated) resignation/termination of Saudi Arabia’s longstanding oil minister Ali al-Naimi, everyone has been wondering about what comes next and how this development will impact the price of oil. We laid out our preliminary thoughts as follows: Ultimately this is not about the new oil minister: this is about Prince Mohammed taking full control over Saudi oil. So the question everyone now wants answered is “what does this mean for oil?” While nobody knows the answer, what is clear is that over the past 2 months, Prince Mohammed has had a far more hawkish outlook on oil prices. [I]t was Mohammed who effectively scuttled the Doha oil deal which was “this close” to reaching a conclusion before a last minute collapse as the crown prince intervened, overriding al Naimi’s proposal. Furthermore, as the FT reported at the time, “there […]