Oil prices "could be restored by the end of 2015", OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem El-Badri said on the sidelines of the 10th Arab Energy Conference in Abu Dhabi.
"We are not able to adequately assess the state of the market. We should wait until the second half of 2015 to see how the market would react to such low oil prices," TASS quoted him.
And even more optimistic statement was made by UAE Energy Minister Suheil Faraj al-Mazrui, who expressed the hope that the situation on the world oil market would normalize in the near future. "We fully support the decision of OPEC to give the market some time to stabilize. We hope that oil producers will correlate their supply on the market with the need to achieve a balance. In this case, the situation would be quickly normalized," he said.
"The Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries this year has witnessed a significant drop in oil prices, which had a significant impact on the economic situation of the regional oil-producing states. It is necessary to develop measures that would stabilize the market of energy resources and thereby strengthen our position in the world oil market," the minister said.
The Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources of Saudi Arabia, Ali al-Nuaimi, who has no doubt that "the oil market will begin to grow," shares al-Mazrui's optimism. He assured that the Kingdom is not going to reduce the level of oil production and keep its quota, as will other members of OPEC.
The minister noted that it is not only the OPEC countries who are responsible for this state of the oil market: "Saudi Arabia and other countries (outside the organization) have sought ways to stabilize the market, but the lack of cooperation on the part of producers who are not members of OPEC and the spread of misinformation and speculation led to the fall in prices," he said.
