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CAIRO: The Qatar Energy Minister, Mr Abdullah al-Attiyah said on Saturday that current crude prices were too low to sustain investments in the oil industry to meet a future rise in demand.

“We can all live with $70,” Mr Attiyah said.

“With this price, we can invest in upstream projects, but below that it will be very difficult” to boost output capacity.

“Projects could be postponed and maybe we will see a shortage in production” when demand picks up, he added ahead of a meeting of OPEC ministers in Cairo today to review a sharp drop in the price of oil.

Most OPEC members rely heavily on oil as the main source of income. Oil nations, especially in the Gulf, have undertaken huge investments worth hundreds of billions US dollars to raise production capacity.

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