Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said on Friday global oil inventories had declined from their peak but had not yet fallen far enough. “Today (inventories) are still about 2.8 billion barrels, they are significantly below the peak in 2017 of 3.12 (billion barrels) but still above the time when the glut started to materialize,” he told reporters during a ministerial panel meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC producers in Jeddah. “We have to be patient, we don’t want to jump the gun, we don’t want to be complacent and listen to some of the noise that ‘mission accomplished’ and things of that sort,” Falih said. Falih also said there remained many variables in the market as demand was uncertain and new supplies were emerging at a quicker pace than anticipated.