Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, former Saudi Oil...

Sheik Ahmed Zaki Yamani, former Saudi Oil Minister, reappeared in public this week in the role of a harbinger of doom, predicting another energy crisis. Yamani, in a rare public speech, in London, renewed a theme he regularly dwelt on before he lost his job in October, 1986--that there must be a dialogue of oil producers and consumers. “It is only a matter of time before the whole world will be dependent on Persian Gulf oil with all the political difficulties,” Yamani told Britain’s Royal Institute of International Affairs on Tuesday night. Problems might arise as early as the mid-1990s, he said, adding: “I see no alternative but some sort of dialogue between major consumers and producers. Maybe out of that dialogue some sort of international agreement could be evolved to prevent a crisis which would have very serious political consequences as well as financial and economic ones.”