RIYADH, Nov 24: Despite all the fireworks, intense and at times heated debate, the Opec summit in Riyadh – only the third in its history - ended up earlier in the week assuring ‘adequate, timely and sufficient’ oil supplies.

Politics and oil go together and Riyadh was no exception. Even before a word was uttered at the conference hall, even before the summit got underway, there were speculations all around about Opec endeavouring to take a new, more aggressive and assertive shape.

There were calls from within the Opec, the cartel controlling forty per cent of the global crude market, to use its position to influence changes in the direction the world was taking. There was a definite push from within for the cartel to take lead role in major global issues and conflicts.

And thus when on day one, President Chavez grabbed the headlines through his fiery, hard-hitting 25-minute speech, every one, including King Abdullah knew, he ‘went on a bit!” The king himself was clear in his thinking that oil is an economic tool and was needed to be used that way. “Oil must not become an instrument for conflict,” he underlined.

In current times, it is the economic emancipation of the common people taking precedence in global politics. President Chavez had a point when he said oil prices could touch skies, if another war was thrust on the region. Any war on Tehran would have real, serious implications for the entire global energy balance. This could be disastrous! President Ahmedinejad also seemed convinced of the fact. He was gracious enough to concede that Iran would never look to use oil as a weapon, predicting no war will break out in the region, therefore, one should not be worried.”

Many in the conference palace strongly felt while President Hugo Chavez and President Ahmedinejad could be reasoned, some people in Washington don’t seem to be ready to tune to any advice in this direction. And while the leader of the free world seems determined to put Kyoto behind and move on, leaders in Riyadh succeeded in garnering a healthy sum of $750 million to ensure a safe and healthy environment for the world “we all live”.

The issue of de-linking oil proceeds from the weakening dollar may not have been mentioned in the final communiqué yet the issue remained a point of concern to all throughout the conference. Intense debate on the issue during the closed door sessions of the summit was also heard live, courtesy a human error in the media room. The Iranian president was later quoted as saying the meeting had considered pricing oil in currencies other than the dollar and that they also discussed converting their cash reserves away from the sliding US dollar.

”All participating leaders showed an interest in changing their hard currency reserves to a credible hard currency,” the Iranian president told reporters at the end of the meeting. Some said producing countries should designate a single hard currency aside from the US dollar to form the basis of oil trade.

The issue is not that easy. If dollar collapses as a result of Opec de-linking, then it would also impact the trillions of dollars of cartel’s money invested in dollars. The decision will thus have far-reaching economic and political consequences and could definitely not be taken at the spur of the moment.