Saudi Arabia's decision to flood world markets with oil is a mistake that the kingdom has repeated several times in the past four decades, Nigeria's former central bank governor said in an interview. Muhammad Sanusi II told CNN it was unclear whether last year's OPEC decision—orchestrated by Saudi Arabia—to accelerate production would ever pay dividends. OPEC is trying to wrestle back market share from US oil producers. "I am not sure it benefits Saudi Arabia itself. Right now they have drained their reserves," he said, referring to reports that fund managers were asked to unload $70 billion of assets on behalf of the Saudi government. "This is a mistake the Saudis have made before. In the 1970s and 1980s, they created an oil glut and ... oil prices came down to $10, $15 a barrel and everybody suffered for that," Sanusi said. "It does not help them and it does not help anyone." Nigeria's oil revenues fell by two-thirds between September 2014 and July 2015 after the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar backed the policy put forward by Saudi Arabia.
