By Javier Blas and Commodities Editor

Saudi Arabia sent a crystal clear message last week to the oil market: $100 a barrel is the new normal.

For some, it is a green light to bid up forward-dated crude oil futures.

In an interview with CNN, Ali Naimi, the powerful Saudi oil minister, said: ?Our wish and hope is we can stabilise this oil price and keep it at a level around $100.?

The new favoured price – a de facto target – is a third higher than the $75-a-barrel level that King Abdullah said was a ?fair price? in November 2008.

Abdalla El Badri, secretary general of Opec, backed the target, saying that ?$100 a barrel does not hurt the world economy?.

?This level is acceptable to both sides, for the producer as well as for the consumer countries,? he told the Kurier newspaper.

The front of the oil curve is already trading around 10 per cent above the new Saudi and Opec preferred price target. But forward prices are not. Take the five-year forward oil Brent futures contract, which has traded consistently under $100 since August.

The Dec 2016 contract closed at $92.89 a barrel, seven per cent below Saudi Arabia?s new price target on Friday. ?Longer dated crude oil prices represent good value,? a multi-billion commodities asset manager tells me, referring to contracts for delivery in five years.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that others are making the same bet, buying contracts for delivery in 2015 and 2016 and betting that the current price of around of $90 a barrel represents, at the very least, a 10 per cent discount to the likely outcome.

Yet the back end of the curve is not a fail-safe investment even if Saudi Arabia is targeting oil prices around $100 a barrel.

For one, Riyadh is flexible and has in the past lowered its price expectations to help the global economy. After the start of the 2008-09 financial crisis downturn, Mr Naimi said that Saudi Arabia was ready to accept prices below the $75 a barrel suggested as ?fair? by King Abdullah for a while to quick start the global recovery. But as many in the oil market have painfully discovered over the last decade, it is foolish to bet against Saudi Arabia. So, welcome the $100 a barrel crude oil for contracts for 2016.

? The Financial Times Limited 2012