Suggestions that oil prices will remain at their current levels will "turn out to have been wrong", according to Saudi vice oil minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud.
Brent crude oil prices have fallen 43% to $48 per barrel in the last 12 months as Saudi Arabia led the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in continuing to pump despite a slowdown in global demand.
Demand has slowed as a result of the stalling Chinese economy together with the abundance of oil alternatives such as shale gas.
However, Prince Abdulaziz, speaking at an energy forum meeting in Qatar, played down concerns.
He said: "Despite all the macroeconomic uncertainties engulfing the global economy, oil demand continues to grow at a robust pace and is set to increase by 1.5 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2015, the strongest growth seen in the past few years."
In 2015, oil consumption is estimated to reach 94 million b/d, and the Saudis are confident this will increase.
He said: "Globalisation, industrialisation, urbanisation and rapid development – all fuelled by energy – will continue to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and to expand the size of the middle class from the current level of 1.8 billion to 3.2 billion in 2020, and to 4.9 billion in 2030, with the bulk of this expansion occurring in Asia.
"The new emerging middle class will be made up of people who are younger, and eager to increase their consumption.
"Such young demographics amidst rising income levels will keep energy demand on an upward trend."
Normality is also likely to return to the supply-side of the oil equation, with Prince Abdulaziz saying that "$200bn of investments in energy have been cancelled this year".
Prince Abdulaziz also dismissed theories about "scarcity" in oil production, saying: "The peak oil theories that dominated the energy discourse few years ago - insisting that global oil production had already reached a peak - have proved to be simply wrong.
"The pendulum has now moved in the opposite direction, and expectations of 'scarcity' have been replaced with expectations of 'abundance'."
The IEA (International Energy Agency) has echoed the Saudi sentiment in its annual assessment of the energy market saying that the collapse in oil prices risks undermining efforts to reduce the pollution blamed for global warming, a topic at the top of the COP climate change conference in Paris later this month.
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