Out of the Desert: My Journey From Nomadic Bedouin to the Heart of Global Oil / Ali Al-Naimi

 

Until 7 May 2016, Ali Al-Naimi was Saudi oil minister - and OPEC kingpin - a position he has held for 20 years. As global oil's central banker, Al-Naimi moved markets with the briefest of utterances. But it wasn't always that way.

 

Al-Naimi was born into abject poverty as a nomadic Bedouin in the 1930s, just as US companies were discovering vast quantities of oil under the baking Arabian deserts. From his first job as a shepherd boy, aged four, to his appointment to one of the most powerful political and economic jobs in the world, Out of the Desert charts Al-Naimi's extraordinary rise to power.

 

Described by Alan Greenspan as 'the most powerful man you've never heard of', Al-Naimi's incredible journey proves that anyone can make it - even a poor Bedouin shepherd boy. This is his exclusive inside story of power, politics and oil.