Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh and his Iraqi and Venezuelan counterparts Adel Abdul Mahdi and Eulogio del Pino were joined in Tehran by Qatar’s Energy Minister H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh al-Sada.
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“Iran agreed with the proposal”.
Even before the Iranian statement, oil markets and analysts had greeted the news of the Saudi-Russian agreement with skepticism.
Iran’s Zanganeh said after the meeting that he supported any effort to stabilise the market and that steps other than the Saudi-Russia agreement from Tuesday to keep output at January levels should be taken.
This morning, the energy ministers of Venezuela, Iran, Iraq and OPEC president Qatar met in Tehran to convince both Iran and Iraq to agree to the freeze.
A source close to the talks told Sputnik earlier in the day that the meeting has been held “in a negative atmosphere”.
The U.S. stock market closed higher Wednesday as Iran said it supports the oil-output-freeze deal between OPEC and non-OPEC countries, which pushed oil prices up more than six percent. For instance, Iran reiterated that it intends to grow its output back to pre-sanctions level.
Iran, which only recently rejoined global markets after the end of worldwide sanctions on the country, remained insistent that it would increase its production in a bid to regain lost market share when it was under sanctions. These [OPEC] states increased oil output… and took advantage of the circumstances… They hope that by restraining the growth in production, they might trim the global oil glut.
Iran used to export 2.3 million barrels a day, but it has been limited to one million barrels a day since 2011. “The idea that you might stem the supply of oil by telling everyone to freeze the production at record highs doesn’t really seem like a good strategy to try and bring up the price”, he added.
“Asking Iran to freeze its oil production level is illogical … when Iran was under sanctions, some countries raised their output and they caused the drop in oil prices”, Asali said. A Reuters survey released on January 5 showed Iranian production at 2.9 million bpd in December.
Brent crude was up 28 cents at $32.46 a barrel, after settling down $1.21 in the previous session. For months, as oil prices have plunged, Riyadh had refused to curb its production in an attempt to force other oil producers, especially US shale oil producers, out of the market.
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West Texas Intermediate for March delivery rose as much as US$1.06 to US$31.72 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at US$31.50 at 7.33am Hong Kong time.
