Oil market 'balanced', producers inexorably looking to Asia, says Saudi oil minister

The oil market is well balanced with more than adequate supplies, Saudi Arabia’s oil minister Ali Al-Naimi said, ahead of the latest OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna, Austria on Friday.

“Oil producers are invariably looking to Asia, where the rate of economic growth in key emerging markets fuels demand for oil and gas. While we expect demand to gradually rise in other regions of the world, Asia is where demand growth would be,” the Saudi oil minister said.

On the subject of OPEC’s production quota, Al-Naimi declined to pre-empt the outcome of the ministers’ meeting, but remarked that the market remained "well balanced” with more than adequate supplies “relative to demand.”

Asked if he was content with the market situation, the OPEC powerbroker simply quipped: “I find no reason not to be."

In an official statement, OPEC described the global economic outlook as "patchy". It forecasts world oil demand to grow by around 1.2m barrels per day (bpd) in 2015, up from 1m bpd in 2014. OPEC noted that majority of this demand would be driven by non-OECD countries.

Meanwhile, Brent continued to slide downward following overnight losses trading lower by 0.97% or 60 cents at $61.43 a barrel 10:05 BST.