RIYADH, 13 February — Saudi Arabia and Norway are optimistic that the start of global economic recovery now under way would help stabilize oil prices at $20 per barrel in the second half of this year. This upbeat assessment of the oil market was provided by Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi and his Norwegian counterpart Einar Stensneas at a press conference here yesterday. The Norwegian oil and energy minister and his 22-member delegation, including ten journalists, arrived here Monday night from Oslo. Later, they left on an inspection tour of the Shaybah field, where TotalFinaElf and Conoco are involved in gas exploration under the Kingdom’s gas initiative.During their meeting both Al-Naimi and the Norwegian minister reviewed the oil market situation, both in the short and long terms in the wake of the Sept. 11 events and the resulting decline in oil prices. Stensneas said the economic recession and the mild winter caused an imbalance between supply and demand. This prompted the need for a production cut in which both OPEC and non-OPEC countries joined hands in stabilizing the market. However, with the prospects of a gradual economic recovery in the US and elsewhere in the second half of this year, both ministers were hopeful that the oil prices would stay at a “decent and fair” level “neither significantly lower than $20 per barrel nor significantly higher than $20.”