Fadhil Jafar al-Chalabi (1929–2019[1]) was an Iraqi economist, and was Acting Secretary General of OPEC from 1983 to 1988.
[2] Born in 1929 in Baghdad to Jafar Mohamad al-Chalabi and Fatima née al -Uzri, Chalabi studied law at Baghdad University and graduated in 1951 before gaining a PhD in economics from the University of Paris.
In 1975 he was one of the hostages taken by Carlos the Jackal at the OPEC-Conference in Vienna ( see OPEC siege).
He was assistant secretary general to the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries in Kuwait from 1976 to 1978.
[3] In 1987 he became Executive Director of the Centre for Global Energy Studies,[4] a London-based think-tank founded and chaired by Ahmed Zaki Yamani.