After an important meeting with visiting OPEC Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo in Tehran on Tuesday, Zangeneh said most OPEC member states support oil prices at between $50 and $60 per barrel, PressTV reported.
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This is especially important if their usual suppliers, such as Saudi Arabia and the other Middle Eastern producers as well as Russian Federation, do finally manage to limit production, or even cut back on shipments to Asian customers.
In a statement issued on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Hanzhou, on 5 September, Saudi Arabia and Russian Federation flagged their openness to cooperating in the energy sphere, subject to Iran participating in any accord.
The comments signal that any deal between oil producers in Algiers later this month may have to accommodate more supplies from Iran.
Iran has made it clear that it would join a deal to cap production levels only after its crude production and market share reach the pre-sanctions level.
The member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is ready to pump more as it seeks to regain market share after the measures were eased earlier this year, Mohsen Ghamsari, director of global affairs at state-run National Iranian Oil Co., said in Singapore on Monday.
“The Algiers summit may very well set the stage for the re-emergence of OPEC’s traditional Prisoner’s Dilemma”, said John Driscoll, the chief strategist at JTD Energy Services Pte, who has spent more than 30 years trading crude and petroleum in Singapore.
The upcoming OPEC meeting will be held on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum (IEF) in Algeria on September 26-28.
An worldwide agreement to cap crude-oil output in a way that would restrict actual supply and support prices looks no nearer after the two largest producers pledged to cooperate.
Iran will support any measures to revive prices “while preserving its national interests” to regain market share, Mehr news agency cited Deputy Oil Minister Amir Hossein Zamaninia as saying on Saturday. Saudi Arabia, however, has repeatedly hindered such a deal by insisting that Iran agree to the same low production level as that assigned for other countries.
Meanwhile, OPEC is also producing unprecedented amounts of crude, with total output reaching 33.69 million barrels a day last month, according to according to a Bloomberg survey of analysts, oil companies and ship-tracking data.
Saudi Arabia said on Tuesday it would go along with a freeze in oil output if other producers agreed one but cautioned that Iran could foil any attempt to limit output.
“We can increase crude production based on market requirement”, Ghamsari said.
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Iran, which is raising exports after the lifting of Western sanctions in January, refused to participate in the earlier effort to freeze output.
