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Monday, March 12, 2018
Venezuelan oil official Alirio Parra, has died at age 90. Parra held various positions in the Energy Ministry in the South American country, including deputy minister and minister of energy.
On the international scene Parra helped to found the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and remained influential at its meetings throughout the years. Parra, as an assistant to Venezuela’s then energy minister, attended the meeting in Baghdad in 1960 of officials from Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran and Iraq that formed the now Vienna-based OPEC.
OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo paid tribute to “one of the great men of the industry” in a statement on the OPEC website.
“This is an extremely sad day, not only for his family, his wife Sally and their children, who are in our thoughts and prayers, but for the entire OPEC family which Dr. Parra was a founding member and remained a treasured part of his entire life. But we should also recall the great life of this quintessential gentleman: one of the great men of the industry, a proud son of Venezuela and a citizen of the world, a scholar, a real oil man – and, to many of us, a very dear friend.,” Barkindo said in the statement.
Parra served as Venezuela’s minister of energy and mines from 1992 to 1994 and head of its OPEC delegation, and also held the OPEC presidency. He was a board member of Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA.
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