It was a simple condition: Iran will cooperate as long as it is excluded from the freeze, or as Reuters put it, Iran will cooperate “so long as fellow OPEC members recognize its right to regain lost market share, the country’ oil minister said on Friday”.
Advertisement
Tehran says it has doubled its exports of oil and gas to 2.7 million barrels per day (bpd) since signing the nuclear deal in July past year.
Earlier, Saudi Arabia s energy minister Khalid Al-Falih also downplayed hopes for a reduction in production at the group s meeting next month in Algeria next month.
Oil prices rose on Thursday on speculation the dollar would drop on Friday’s monetary policy speech by the U.S. Federal Reserve Chair, before paring gains on a Reuters interview with the Saudi Energy Minister that cast doubts about an OPEC output freeze.
Brent crude worldwide benchmark prices LCOc1 were trading at $49.46 a barrel at 0658 GMT, a drop of 21 cents from their last close.
Iran on Friday said that it would collaborate with other oil producers to stabilise the markets.
“We have had a bit of a pullback, but that is after a bull market rally, so it’s probably a healthy thing for the market to pause and digest the situation”, said Angus Nicholson, a market analyst in Melbourne at IG Ltd. He noted that the market is moving in the right direction and that any significant intervention wouldn’t be necessary. “I certainly don’t advocate a cut”, he told Bloomberg News.
But a previous OPEC attempt in April to steady output collapsed largely because of Iran s refusal to join talks, keen to maximize its oil revenues after having just emerged from worldwide sanctions. Zanganeh had not previously committed to attend the meeting, and he didn’t comment on the position Iran will take at the talks.
Iran, OPEC’s third-largest producer, boosted output after Western sanctions were lifted in January, and had refused to join OPEC and some non-members in an accord earlier this year to freeze production levels.
“I will participate in this meeting”, Iran’s Zanganeh said, according to the oil ministry’s news service Shana. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude nudged into positive territory, up 9 cents at $47.42 a barrel.
Advertisement
He also confirmed Iran’s presence in the 15th International Energy Forum (IEF15) to be held in Algiers from 26-28 September adding “when instability occurred in the market, Iran’s oil production barely stood at 2.7 million barrels and its export volume was less than one million barrels per day”.
