Special to WorldTribune.com

ABU DHABI — Crude oil prices were expected to fall over the next few years.

A Gulf Arab think tank has assessed that the price of crude could fall to $80 per barrel because of the growth of shale energy, expected to reach up to 14 million barrels per day by 2035.

Kuwait’s Diplomatic Center for Strategic Studies said, however, that unpredictable factors hampered forecasts.

“Future oil prices will be affected by emerging factors, such as cost of supplies of non-conventional crude, namely shale oil,” the center’s report, dated Dec. 24, 2014, said.

The report said the world market, with demand of nearly 90 million barrels per day in 2013 and expected to rise to 94.5 million in 2018, would be bolstered by increased oil supply, including drilling and development of used wells. But prices could be affected by turmoil in such oil-producing states as Iraq, Libya and Nigeria.

  $80 per barrel, fracking, Gulf states fear shale boom will lead to drop in crude oil prices