Dubai: The UAE Energy Minister said on Sunday the country is “not panicking” and will not call an emergency meeting despite oil prices continuing their steep decline.
Members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), which includes the UAE, can call an emergency session ahead of scheduled meetings to discuss the bloc’s oil policy.
“We decided to leave it to the market to balance,” Suhail Al Mazroui told Gulf News at the Arab Strategy Forum.
Oil prices have fallen by around $15 (Dh55) a barrel since the November 27 Opec meeting where members decided to keep output at 30 million barrels a day.
Brent crude closed on Friday trading at $61.85 a barrel, down 2.87 per cent for the day. The global benchmark is down more than 45 per cent since June.
Al Mazroui said producers and consumers should now “allow the market at the beginning of 2015 to balance”.
Analysts estimate prices could now touch $50 a barrel, a loss of more than half of the $115 June price tag, raising concerns for the national budget of many oil dependent economies.
“What price it will get to is not a concern,” Al Mazroui said.
The UAE currently produces around 2.8 million barrels per day and is targeting to 3.5 million barrels a day by 2017.
Opec Secretary General Abdullah Al Badri declined to comment at the same forum when asked how much further oil prices would have to fall to prompt an emergency session of Opec members.
Al Badri told reporters that all Opec members, who consume seven million barrels a day, should cut “waste” in a bid to curb the impact of weaker oil prices on national budgets.
