Opec, which accounts for about a third of global crude oil supply, will convene in Vienna today for the first time in 21 years and 70 summits without the formidable Ali Al Naimi sitting in the chair of the cartel boss Saudi Arabia – yet the shadow of the diminutive former desert-office boy will loom large over the busy noisy room.

Prior to his arrival as the defacto leader of the oil exporting group in late 1995, the disparate group of Asian-Arab-African-Latam countries would spend weeks in convocation twice a year trying to reach a consensus on the next policy to adopt in what appeared to be a perpetual standoff with their international partners. The father of four took the reins of a very geopolitically-focused Opec that obsessed over the fractures that divided the group and put it in the hands of technocrats that spent hours instead of weeks agreeing mutually beneficial strategies that served their customers.

“Young people sometimes ask me, what is the secret of your success? I tell them there is no secret. Number one: hard work! There is no substitute for hard work, and that goes for studying and in their work,” Al Naimi told an industry audience last week in Doha in what was his first public address since being retired on May 7th. “Number two, I tell them, make your boss look good. If you do, maybe he will be promoted and you can take his job!” the Stanford University graduate said a fortnight after his protégé Khalid Al-Falih took over his post as the kingdom’s oil minister.

HE Al Naimi’s journey to become the most influential man in the global oil markets began 70 years ago, when as a 12-year old boy he signed up to run errands at Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil company Aramco, rising to become its first Saudi President. He climbed up the ranks and became the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources in 1995, putting him at the helm of the world’s largest crude exporting group. As the Opec linchpin, Saudi Arabia and Al Naimi’s influence stretched far beyond the country’s borders and he was regularly called upon to calm oil markets through turbulent political and economic waters as he did most recently in February in Houston as oil prices danced at 13-year lows, he boldly reminded his U.S. competitors that “we are all in it together.”

The majority of the 13 ministers meeting today in Vienna for the 169th Opec Conference weren’t in office when Al Naimi led the oil exporters group to make an historic change of direction in November 2014 away from maximizing revenue to maximizing market share. This decision accelerated a collapse in the oil price and set it on a two-year roller coaster ride that has delivered much pain and significant budget deficits to all Opec member states.

Oil prices have seen a series of spectacular 50+% drops and 50+% recoveries since mid 2014 when oil prices were sitting stable after many years above $100 a barrel – thus far this year we have seen prices drop to under $25 a barrel early in the first quarter only to recover to reach $50 a barrel in recent days as Al Naimi’s market-share strategy starts to finally show dividends.

This has been the former Saudi Minister of Petroleum & Mineral Resources third time leading Opec into battle against a price collapse, and it is starting to appear like he retires with a perfect 3 and 0 score. He played a key role in efforts to defend prices when they dropped to $10 a barrel in 1997 as the Asian financial crisis took hold, and again decade or so later when oil prices fell off a cliff from $150 a barrel to $30 during the 2008-09 global credit crisis when Al Naimi choreographed Opec to slash production by 4 million barrels a day and send prices back up to $100 a barrel.

The current market-share baton now passes onto a new generation of relatively inexperienced energy officials at a time when the group is once again vulnerable to reverting back to a gaggle of states bickering over what fissures divide them, rather than the technocrat Al Naimi way of focusing on policies that are mutually beneficial.

The world awaits to find out whether Al-Falih and more importantly his boss, Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman bin AbdulAziz, will approach Opec as an important tool in the kingdom’s major economic reform plan or as a distraction that will be left to wither on the vine.

The first signals look reassuring with AL-Falih arriving in Vienna 3 days ahead of the Opec summit on June 2nd, but it would appear that may be the early arrival may be more to avail of the single swoop access to the global media to advocate on behalf of Saudi Arabia’s new reform plans rather than to engage with fellow Opec members around future strategy. But either way, for most observers the group will remain on the sidelines in an everyone for themselves posture.

“Opec’s previous ability to swing prices was when it had a monopoly over the market. Now with many players in the mix, it is up to the market forces to decide who stays in business and who leaves,” said HE Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah, Chairman of the Abdullah Bin Hamad Al-Attiyah International Foundation for Energy & Sustainable Development, who was Qatar’s oil minister at the 98th Opec Conference in mid-1995, the last time the group met without Al Naimi as Saudi Minister. “If Opec were to cut production by let’s say 1.5 million barrels per day and the next day the price goes up, the other producers will take the whole share - there is no benefit for Opec in that. Let market forces determine the oil price now,” Al Attiyah said.

His Excellency Ali Al Naimi was this year’s recipient of The 2016 Honorary Lifetime Achievement Award for the Advancement of International Energy Policy & Diplomacy presented by the Abdullah bin Hamad Al-Attiyah International Foundation for Energy & Sustainable Development.