London (Platts)--28Jan2013/701 am EST/1201 GMT

OPEC Secretary General Abdalla el-Badri said Monday that world oil markets were well balanced and likely to remain well supplied through the current year to meet expected growth in demand, but that the oil producer group did not envisage a collapse in oil prices.

"At present, we believe the market is well balanced," Badri told a conference at Chatham House in London.

"In 2013 the market is expected to remain well supplied to meet the expected demand growth," he said. "We do not envisage a price collapse." "At present, we believe the market is well balanced," he said.

Badri said it was important to understand what drives fear of oil price weakness and cited such factors as global economic slowdown, seasonally lower demand in spring and expanding commercial inventories.

At the same time, he said, oil prices can be driven higher by geopolitics, a stronger-than-expected recovery in the global economy and expected new supply not materializing fast enough.

ICE Brent futures were trading flat at around $113/b early Monday, while March NYMEX crude was steady at just under $96/b.

The price of the OPEC crude basket on Friday was $110.20/b, up $0.32/b from the previous day.

--Margaret McQuaile, margaret_mcquaile@platts.com 
--Edited by Jonathan Fox, jonathan_fox@platts.com 
--Edited by Richard Rubin, richard_rubin@platts.com

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