OPEC cannot protect world oil prices which have plunged since June, the United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday

OPEC cannot protect world oil prices which have plunged since June, the United Arab Emirates said on Tuesday, adding that rising North American shale oil output needed to be curbed.

World prices have been falling since June but the pace of the slide accelerated in November when the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries decided to maintain its production unchanged at 30 million barrels per day.

Analysts say that richer OPEC members like the UAE have been ready to accept the price fall in the hope that it will force higher-cost shale producers out of the market.

"We cannot continue to be protecting a certain price," UAE Energy Minister Suhail al-Mazrouei said.

"We have seen the oversupply, coming primarily from shale oil, and that needed to be corrected," he told participants in the Gulf Intelligence UAE Energy Forum in Abu Dhabi.

Oil prices continued their slide towards six-year lows in Asian trade on Tuesday after Brent crude closed below $50 a barrel the previous day for the first time since April 2009.