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Saudi Arabia welcomes US shale oil

“We need to make sure that the world economy comes out decisively on a growth pattern and, if that can be established, I think that the world economic growth will be sufficient to handle growth from all sorts — shale oil, shale gas, tight oil and including renewable,” Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz told a conference in Dubai.

“The world economy over the long term will need every contribution of every source of energy available,” he said. “The kingdom welcomes new resources of energy supplies, as they are needed.”

The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries expects global demand for its crude to fall in the next five years because of increasing supplies outside the 12-member group from the boom in shale energy and other sources, according to its annual World Oil Outlook.

Despite the surge, Abdulaziz repeated the Saudi Arabian view expressed by Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi’s that there is enough global demand to soak up US shale and Saudi oil, with more oil in the market helping bring down global crude prices to comfortable levels for all.

“It’s a very stable market, it is well supplied. The future holds that the market will continue to be well supplied,” Abdulaziz said.

His comments on the current stability of the oil market echo those of several other Opec oil officials over the last few weeks, which suggests the group will not change its output ceiling of 30 million barrels per day (bpd) when it meets in Vienna on December 4.