OPEC should cut oil production by "about two million barrels a day" in a bid to balance the global market, Iran's oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said Thursday.
Speaking to reporters as he arrived for the emergency meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on Friday, Nozari said the group needs to slice output by more than 1 million barrels a day citing falling U.S. demand of what he termed about 1.2 million barrels a day.
Due to the "economic crisis, we should balance... the market between consumers and suppliers," he said.
Iran is among the hardline group within the cartel that's been most vocal in pushing for a deep oil production cut as OPEC seeks to rein in sliding oil prices amid broad concerns about a global recession.