by Maha El Dahan and Riham Alkousaa
DUBAI (Reuters) – Oil producers, who felt marginalized during the COP 26 climate conference last year, are now being treated as “superheroes” in the face of rising demand, the Emirati energy minister said at a conference on Monday.
Difficult to neglect fossil fuels and advocate the use of renewable energies and then ask for increases in production during a crisis, it is better to think about the long term, observed Suhail al Mazrouei.
According to him, it is essential to invest in oil and gas at the same time as in renewable energies.
He said OPEC+, which includes the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as well as other countries like Russia, needed to replace at least 5-8 million barrels lost each year to keep production at the level. current.
The UAE will cooperate with OPEC+ to ensure stability in the energy market, he added.
The country is doing its best to increase its production capacity by 5 million barrels per day (bpd), but that does not mean it intends to act alone or leave OPEC+, said Suhail al Mazrouei.
The group raised its production target by 400,000 bpd to lift output after COVID-19-related cuts, but struggled to meet that target.
The oil market has been volatile in recent weeks, destabilized by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and new COVID-19 containment measures in China, the world’s largest crude importer.
For Suhail al Mazrouei, OPEC+ must also stay out of politics.
“I think the organization will hold together, Russia is an important member,” he said.
In the short term, energy markets could be under stress, with demand for oil rising by almost 3 million bpd last year, said Sultan Ahmed al Jaber, chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. .
For him, the price volatility is the result of an underlying structural problem and demand should return to pre-pandemic levels by the fourth quarter.
(Report Maha El Dahan and Riham Alkoussa, written by Nadine Awadalla and Michael Georgy; French version Valentine Baldassari, edited by Jean-Michel Bélot)
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