Arab countries will remain the world's main energy supplier for decades to come, with more than half of proven global oil reserves, speakers at an Arab energy conference in Doha said Monday.

Arab countries hold 681 billion barrels of crude oil, representing 58% of proven global reserves, oil exploration and production expert at the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries, Torki Hemsh, told delegates, citing 2009 figures.

The Arab world also holds close to 300 billion barrels of potential, "undiscovered" crude reserves, Hemsh said on the second day of the ninth Arab Energy Conference.

Speaking earlier, Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi also emphasized the Arab region's guaranteed role in the industry.

"These massive reserves...mean that this region will continue to occupy special significance in the global oil industry and trade for many decades to come," he said.

Arab countries produce 21.5 million barrels a day of oil, of which more than one third comes from Saudi Arabia alone, with total Arab oil production down from 23 million barrels a day in 2006 due to the global financial crisis and the drop in demand.

Arab countries also sit on nearly 30% of the world's proven natural gas reserves, Hemsh said, with stocks of 54.1 trillion cubic meters and the potential to add more than 40 trillion cubic meters in the future.

Qatar Petroleum's Director of Oil and Gas Ventures, Saad al-Kaabi, said Arab countries supply 13% of the world's gas production and account for 8% of global gas consumption.

OPEC secretary-general Abdullah El-Badri said the Arab world has the potential to help meet rising global oil and gas demand.

"The Arab world will continue to play a leading role in supplying the world with energy needs far into the future," Badri told the conference.

But the OPEC official warned that uncertainty and price volatility in the oil market have negatively affected the investment needed in the energy sector to boost production.

Badri said OPEC and the oil-exporting Arab countries were looking for security of demand to justify raising output.

By 2020, the oil producer group estimated production ranges between 29 million barrels a day and 36 million barrels a day "which has an uncertainty gap of $250 billion of investment," Badri said.

OPEC's current actual production, including Iraq , hovers around 29 million barrels a day.

The International Energy Agency forecasts that oil demand will increase from 85 million barrels a day now to 105 million barrels a day by 2030.

"At least 11 million barrels a day of that increase will be [met by] OPEC," most of it coming from Arab countries, said IEA chief Nabuo Tanaka, adding that massive increases in natural gas consumption are also predicted.

Tanaka said rising global oil and gas consumption will come at a much higher price because "the age for cheap energy is simply over."

The head of the Paris-based energy watchdog questioned whether OPEC will be able to invest sufficiently to meet the expected rise in global demand.

"In [the IEA's] calculation, a major portion of demand increase should be met by Gulf states, Iraq and Iran ," Tanaka said.

But Hemsh dismissed concerns about the Arab world's ability to increase production.

He said that the current spare production capacity of Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and the expected increase in Iraq's and Libya's output, will be sufficient to meet global demand increase by 2020, when it is due to hit 95 million barrels a day.

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