Market fundamentals and high-cost crude producers, rather than Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec), are the ones that will set a fair price for oil in coming months, a UAE oil official said.

"The way I see it, it is the market which will dictate the oil price. Prices are driven by supply and demand ... marginal fields are going to set the (fair) price," said Mubarak Al Ketbi, deputy director of the marketing and refining directorate at state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).

"Opec is not a price setter. The market will set the price," Ketbi told the Platts Middle East Crude Oil Summit in Dubai, declining to comment later on any specific oil price target for the UAE, a core Gulf Opec producer.

Prices have fallen more than 40 per cent since June and Brent crude for January delivery hit $65.33 a barrel on Tuesday, its lowest since September 2009.

At a meeting last month, the Opec decided against reducing production, despite its own forecasts of a surplus and calls from members including Iran and Venezuela for output cuts to shore up prices.

On Monday, the head of Kuwait's state oil company predicted that oil prices were likely to remain around $65 for the next six to seven months, echoing the views of other Gulf delegates who saw oil hovering around $65-70 for a few months before bouncing back to around $80.

Meanwhile, the UAE has reiterated that it will keep its currency peg to the US dollar after an unusually large move by the dirham in the forwards market.

Asked by Reuters whether the dollar's global strength was putting any pressure on the peg, Saif Al Shamsi, assistant governor for monetary policy and financial stability, said the dirham had effectively been pegged since the 1980s.

"We have been maintaining this peg and this exchange rate since 1980 until today, and in the future we will continue with this."

He cited a central bank statement at the end of last month which reaffirmed the UAE's commitment to the peg.

Over the last two weeks the dirham, fixed at 3.6725 to $1, has edged down to its lowest level against the dollar in over a year in the one-year forwards market, implying marginal depreciation against the peg over the next year.

Local bankers believe some investors are reacting to the plunge of global oil prices to five-year lows, as well as a similar move in Saudi riyal forwards, which are often used as a proxy for risk in the region.

However, they do not think the UAE or Saudi currency pegs face any serious pressure or risk of coming under attack, since the big Gulf economies have built up huge fiscal reserves which they could use to keep spending high for years, even if oil stays near $70 a barrel.

Citing a forecast by the International Monetary Fund, Shamsi said on Tuesday that he expected the UAE's gross domestic product to grow 4.25 per cent in 2014, with the non-oil sector expanding 5.5 per cent in both 2014 and 2015.

"The UAE economy is diversified - more than 60 per cent is non-oil," he said. -Reuters