Opec denies seeing long-term oil prices below US$100/b

Oil export cartel Opec has denied predicting oil prices will remain below US$100/b over the next decade.

In a statement on Tuesday, Opec refuted an article in the Wall Street Journal which claimed the organization had forecast oil prices of around US$76/b in 2025 in a best-case scenario.

Citing unnamed sources and a draft report on Opec's strategy, the article also said the group could reinstate production quotas to raise prices.

"The Opec secretariat would like to stress that these and other statements made in the WSJ article have no basis whatsoever," Opec said in an emailed response.

"Not only does the article contain numerous inaccuracies, but much of the referenced material is not mentioned by any document that the Opec secretariat is currently developing in collaboration with its member countries."

Brent crude traded at US$65.27 on London's ICE Future's exchange on Tuesday. Despite showing signs of recovery in recent weeks, the commodity is still down about 44% from a US$115/b peak in June last year.

Opec, responsible for about 40% of the world's oil production, last November resisted calls from some member nations to cut production by keeping output at 30Mb/d.

The fall in prices has been blamed on higher production from US shale fields and weak global demand.