UAE calls for patience ahead of Opec meeting

OREANDA-NEWS. June 01, 2016. UAE energy minister Suhail Mohamed Faraj al-Mazrouei said he is confident that the oil market will soon return to balance, describing 2016 as a "year of correction."

"I am optimistic, as I was in 2015," Mazrouei said on his arrival to Vienna ahead of the upcoming meeting of Opec ministers on 2 June. "The rules of the market, which is supply and demand, are working. That is the essence of the policy, and I think we need to wait."

Mazrouei said he expects that the market will settle at a price that would be both "fair to the consumers and to the producers," but gave no indication as to what that price would be.

Front-month Ice Brent Futures have risen by close to 80pc since the start of the year to just shy of \\$50/bl earlier this week. Mazrouei said this upward trend bodes well for the future.

"We will need to give the market some time," he said. "The market will correct itself. As we saw, since the beginning of the year until now, it has been correcting upward. I think all of those are good signs. We just need to be a little bit patient."

Opec ministers will be meeting on 2 June to discuss oil policy for the second half of the year.