大象传媒

It seems there's a new man in charge of oil policy in Saudi Arabia. Officially, it's still Ali Al-Naimi, who has been the country's oil minister for more than two decades. Al-Al Naimi was backing a deal to freeze output at the recent Doha conference of producers, which ended without agreement. Such a deal should have helped lift the global oil price from its recent lows. But Mr. Al-Naimi was over-ruled - by King Salman's favourite son, the deputy Crown Prince, Prince Mohammed, who wouldn't sign up to any deal that didn't include Iran. So why would the Deputy Crown Prince want to sideline Al Al-Naimi? A question put to economist Irwin Stelzer, of the Hudson Insitute.