Kuwaiti oil minister: OPEC keeps on monitoring global market

Kuwaiti Deputy Premier and Minister of Oil Mustafa Al-Shimali said here on Wednesday the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) would continue efforts to closely monitor the world oil market in order to ensure its stability. In a keynote speech at the 164th Ordinary Meeting of the OPEC, Al-Shimali, who is also the current chairman of the OPEC conference, said although the market has begun to recover gradually from the difficult economic situation over recent few years, the world economic pace is still slow, with several challenges continuing. Since the last OPEC meeting was held in Vienna in May, the global oil market has been increasingly stable, which is a reflection of gradual world economic recovery, especially in the US and Eurozone, and similar growth forecasts for China and Brazil, he said. He expected the international economic growth to shoot up to 3.5 percent by 2014 from just 2.9 percent at present, leading up to high demand for oil at a rate of two million barrels per day. Al-Shimali also predicted non-OPEC oil supplies to edge up by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2014 thanks to economic growth forecasts for North America and Brazil. On oil prices, he said the OPEC crude basket price was stable in the first half of this year, standing at USD 105 per barrel. On the OPEC ministerial meeting, the Kuwaiti minister said the OPEC ministers will look into all significant oil issues, mainly market expectations for the coming six months. He urged non-OPEC producers to work with the cartel in order to ensure stability in the global oil market, which would be surely in the common interest of producers and consumers altogether