Saudi Arabia is working with other Opec members and producers from outside the group to stabilise the market Saudi Oil Minister Ali Al Naimi said.

The world economy is going through an unstable situation Al Naimi said. Crude demand is expected to rise by one million barrels a day every year in this decade and the world requires more investments in oil to compensate for decline rates he said. The decline rate of recovery at the world's oil fields is at about four million barrels a day he said.

"Saudi Arabia is a very reliable supplier. We cooperate with Opec and non-Opec countries to stabilise the market" Al Naimi said at a conference in Manama Bahrain. "We need billions of dollars to continue exploration and producing oil and to invest in spare capacity to stabilise the market."

Threatened by surging production mainly from North America and Russia the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries has been pumping above its quota for 17 months as it seeks to take market share from higher-cost regions. Oil tumbled since the middle of last year as US stockpiles and production expanded creating a global oversupply. Saudi Arabia the world's top crude exporter led Opec to reject demands from members including Algeria and Venezuela to cut supply to bolster prices.

The group opted to maintain its production target to protect market share at the last meeting in June. Opec ministers are due to meet December 4 to assess the market and decide on production levels. Arab countries hold 57 per cent of the world's oil reserves and that will grow on new discoveries Al Naimi said. Arab countries need $700 billion of energy investments over the next 10 years and oil consumption in the region is about 10 per cent of the world's demand he said.

UAE

Oil prices will start improving next year and Opec's decision last year to not cut supplies was the right one the UAE energy ministry said on Thursday. "We believe that Opec policy is the right one... Next year will see improvement in prices... In 2016 we could witness some correction in the market" Matar Al Nyadi undersecretary of the UAE energy ministry told an industry conference in the Bahraini capital Manama.

Kuwait

Crude oil demand will eventually pick up as Chinese growth recovers in coming years buoying prices the chief executive of state energy giant Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) Nizar Al Adsani said on Thursday.

"Demand will pick up and supply will flatten out given the lack of investment so the price will be supported" he told a petrochemical conference in Dubai.

"I think the growth of the middle class in China and infrastructure spending means you will see more cars and demand for more gas and other products and that demand will eventually continue to grow" he said.

Still Adsani said he expected oil prices to remain volatile in coming years with much depending on how quickly US shale production responded to rising prices and on the extent to which lower investment elsewhere downgraded crude production capacity.

He also said he expected competition between Opec producers and non-Opec producers to continue. KPC is seeking to grow its refinery business in Asia and is talking to China and Indonesia.

"We are talking to the Chinese and we have a memorandum of understanding with the Indonesians and we will continue to talk to them but we have nothing concrete yet" Adsani said adding that a refinery project in Asia could be announced next year.

He also said that the Vietnam refinery is 60 percent complete.

Kuwait has announced $120 billion of capital spending on energy over the coming five years. Of that sum $50 billion has already been allocated to the Zour refinery project a clean fuels project for upstream work and for petrochemicals projects he said.