Biofuels will provide only a small proportion of the world’s demand for fuel in the next decade, the developed countries’ energy watchdog has said in an attempt to reassure Opec that the need for oil will continue to grow.

Claude Mandil, the head of the International Energy Agency, told the Financial Times that, even in the worst-case scenario for the oil cartel, there would be a “dramatic” need for an increase in production by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.