OPEC Secretary General Abdalla el-Badri said Tuesday he was concerned about the impact of low oil prices on investment and the consequences for future supply, but insisted that rebalancing world oil markets was the responsibility of all producers and not a burden to be borne by OPEC alone.
Badri also predicted that oil prices would rise from current six-year lows of below $50/b in the next few months, although he did not say how much improvement he expected.
"We have an overhang of 200 million [barrels] in the market. All of us should work together, OPEC and non-OPEC...all of us have to work together to see how we can get rid of this 200 million barrel overhang," he told the annual Oil & Money conference in London.
"I'm really disturbed," he said, referring to the wave of investment cuts announced by oil companies this year in response to the price plunge. "You will see the result. This means less supply and higher prices in the future."
Talking to reporters later, Badri said overall global investment in oil could drop by $130 billion this year from $650 billion in 2014.
Badri also appeared to offer some comfort to those OPEC members which have been unhappy about the group's current laissez-faire strategy of allowing prices to fall to levels that will force high-cost non-OPEC production out of the market.
"This will take a year, maybe a year and a half," he said.
He noted that non-OPEC supply growth was slowing and was expected to be "zero" next year, while the call on OPEC crude was rising.
"So we see that there is an improvement in the market," he said, "but how much the price will improve we don't know."
Badri told reporters he expected Iran's full return to the market to be discussed at OPEC's next meeting on December 4 in Vienna.