Saudi Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Ali bin Ibrahim Al Nuaimi, on Monday opened the Second GCC Petroleum Media Forum under the auspices of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia.

Suhail bin Mohammed Faraj Faris Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy of the UAE, joined ministers of petroleum and energy of the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member states at the opening of the three-day forum held under the theme “Gulf Petroleum Media, Issues and Challenges.”

A delegation from Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) also attended the forum.
In his opening speech, Al Nuaimi dismissed claims that geopolitical reasons and plans to curb shale oil production were behind the crude oil price plunge.

“There are no conspiracies behind Opec’s decision (in November 2014) to keep its target output (of 30 million barrels per day) unchanged,” said the Saudi oil minister.
“We are not against anyone, but we always seek to achieve oil market balance between supply and demand and let demand and supply decide the prices.”

Noting that Saudi Arabia is ready to meet any increase in demand for oil, Al Nuaimi added that the Kingdom is not planning to increase oil production to more than 12.5 million barrels per day.

The Saudi minister also called for the creation of a specialised society for petroleum media to qualify specialized oil and energy journalists.