TOKYO: Oil at $50 a barrel is Saudi Arabia’s contribution to helping nurse the world economy back to health, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources Ali Al-Naimi said yesterday.
Asked if $50 was supportive for the economy, he said: “Yes, that’s our contribution to the world economy.” Asked whether he was worried about high world oil inventories he said: “Eventually they will come down.”
Al-Naimi declined comment on likely OPEC policy at the group’s next meeting on May 28.
He was speaking to reporters ahead of a today’s meeting of Middle East oil producer and Asia consumer countries.
Al-Naimi said yesterday “it would be nicer” if oil prices were higher but that it didn’t make any difference what he thought because the market determined price levels.
“It doesn’t make any difference, the market determines the price. It would be nicer if it were higher,” Al-Naimi said.
US oil closed last week at $51.49 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
The Saudi minister said Saudi Arabia was producing at an unchanged level of just below 8 million bpd.
Meanwhile, Kuwaiti Oil Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah said yesterday it was too early to say if OPEC should consider lowering output at its May 28 meeting, the state news agency KUNA reported.
The minister also said the oil price at around $50 was reasonable given the economic climate, the news agency reported.
“We have to wait for the manifestation of the desired effects of the stimulus packages of the big economies which are suffering from sharp recession,” the minister told KUNA here yesterday.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has cut output by just over 11 percent since September 2008 to counteract a drop in demand and a slump in prices.
But at its last meeting in March it left output quotas unchanged, calling for full compliance by its members with existing curbs.
