Davos: Oil prices will rebound and very soon, Opec Secretary General Abdullah Al Badri said on Thursday in response to a conversation that agreed a price range of $60 to $80 a barrel is likely to be where the current volatility will end.

Speaking at the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Al Badri made clear that the meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) in Vienna in November was a collective decision to keep production at existing levels, and not to cut. He pointed out that Opec members have been producing about 30 million barrels per day (bpd), for over 10 years, but non-Opec members have come into the markets with 7 million bpd of new products, which needs a price over $100, which is being maintained by Opec.

“If we had cut production it would not have stuck. We would have had to cut again in March and again and again,” he said.

“The decision to cut was not aimed at any particular country,” said the Opec Secretary General, naming the USA (home to a lot of shale) and Russia (a major producer) as countries Opec was not targeting.

Fatih Birol, Chief Economist of the International Energy Agenc, y attributed the glut to supply from the US and Canada, saying that non-Opec producers had added 2 million bpd into the market in 2014, just as demand was weakening due to China slowing down to the lowest growth rate in 30 years, the EU experiencing hardly any growth and Japan continuing in recession.

Into this picture he added the new effect of much more efficiency in fuel use having a long term strategic effect on the market. “Cars, jets and trucks all use less fuel and will not return to previous levels,” he said. “Three out of four new cars are fuel efficient.”

Khalid Al Falih, President and CEO of Saudi Aramco, was surprised that the market is surprised by the current low price. “Supply is high and demand has been crimped by low growth and efficiency [echoing Birol’s point]. Geopolitical fear kept the price up artificially for some time,” he said.

As an indication of the need to keep looking ahead, Al Falih said that Saudi Aramco is still investing in new projects and he named three gasfields the company are working on: one in north Saudi Arabia near the Jordan border, and two in the south near the Empty Quarter.

Saudi Aramco is also investing big in downstream as Al Falih pointed out that the company needs to have greater resiliency than can be provided by relying on upstream production.

Looking further ahead, Al Falih pointed out that the entire industry would need to invest trillions of dollars to find the 50 to 60 million bpd of new capacity that will be needed in the next two decades.

The major winner from the current scenario is the US, said Birol, pointing out that the cheaper imported oil is improving the US balance of trade, and it has 600,000 new jobs in shale related business.

Japan and India are also winners from the lower prices, and will be more so if they use this period to deregulate and cut subsidies, said Birol.

Turning to the losers, he identified Russia as the biggest because it has lost about 70 per cent of its exports of oil and gas, which is worth about $150 billion that that Russia can ill afford to lose.

Deputy Russian Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovish immediately denied Russia was a loser, arguing that Russia’s switch to sell to China would allow it to diversify and find new markets.

Nonetheless, he supported a market which offered a price of between $70 to $80 per barrel, and he said the current market which swung from $40 to $120 was bad for producers and consumers.