The Saudis Have a High-Stakes Plan to Win the Global Oil War

On March 4, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, the 59-year-old Saudi oil minister, was locked down in his suite at the Park Hyatt hotel in Vienna, preparing for what would turn out to be the most important meeting of his life.

A veteran negotiator, the prince is skilled in the Byzantine diplomacy and backroom deals that have characterized OPEC since its founding 60 years ago. Few others can bridge the political enmities among oil producers, who often have little in common other than their addiction to petrodollars. It’s a world where a few barrels here or there in a production deal often make all the difference. “How can we work in dividing these things?” Prince Abdulaziz told Bloomberg TV last year. “It is not going to be a science. It’s science, art, and sensibility.”