Abdulaziz bin Salman, the prince in charge of #Saudi oil | Financial Times

Abdulaziz bin Salman, the prince in charge of Saudi oil | Financial Times

© Joe Cummings

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman of Saudi Arabia spent most of his adult life as energy-minister-in-waiting. But just six days after becoming the first royal to take on the role, the kingdom’s oil production was cut in half by a series of drone and missile attacks that set the world’s largest crude processing facility ablaze. 

The attack on Abqaiq in September 2019, which Riyadh and Washington blame on Iran, was an early test of Prince Abdulaziz, the son of King Salman and half brother of the kingdom’s notorious crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman. 

As oil prices surged 20 per cent the prince was whisked by private jet from London to Saudi Arabia’s eastern province, after which he soon announced the kingdom would be able to maintain oil supplies while it repaired the damage. 

Oil traders watched prices reverse. But while Prince Abdulaziz might have been lucky in this instance, the tests have barely stopped since. 

In less than two years he has had to navigate the controversial public listing of Saudi Aramco in late 2019; the start of the Covid-19 pandemic; a subsequent shortlived price war with Russia; and then calls from President Donald Trump for the kingdom to reverse course and lead a record cut in global oil production. 

His supporters say the 61-year-old prince, who has been married for 34 years and has three children in their twenties, has proved equal to the task. “If it wasn’t for his experience any one of these events would have overwhelmed an energy minister,” says Bassam Fattouh at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where Prince Abdulaziz sits on the board. 

But to his critics, Prince Abdulaziz has his flaws, including playing down two of the biggest tests lurking in the background.