OPEC
Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri says the organization will be able to make
room for Iran’s barrels when the country restores production to the levels
before sanctions.
Tehran
exported around 2.3 million barrels of oil per day before sanctions cut them to
around 1 million. With finalized nuclear negotiations having paved the way for
the removal of the sanctions, Iran wants to regain its normal share of the
market.
"We are
really happy that sanctions are on their way to be over for Iran. Now we don’t
have any country under sanctions in our organization,” al-Badri has said in
Moscow.
"I think the
quantity that is in question, I think our group will accommodate them,” he
added.
Badri said
he had received no request for an extraordinary OPEC meeting before the next
scheduled gathering in December despite speculations that it might be needed to
discuss Iran’s return to normal production levels.
Tehran has
said it will raise output by 500,000 barrels per day within two months and 1
million bpd after six months once the sanctions are lifted.
Certain
circles are in a panic mode, stating that Iran’s return to pres-sanction
production levels would worsen the global supply glut.
The
overabundance is the result of the US producing near the fastest rate in three
decades and its ally in OPEC – Saudi Arabia – pumping at a record pace.
Most of OPEC
and non-OPEC members have been on the receiving end of the tribulations of the
market as a result of the Saudi and US overproduction.
The turmoil
has brought Russia – the world’s biggest oil producer outside OPEC – closer to
the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries. Russia has indicated
toattend the next OPEC meeting in Vienna in December.
On Thursday,
al-Badri met with Alexander Novak in Moscow but the Russian energy minister
said they didn’t discuss coordination in detail.
"The question
of lowering production is very difficult for Russia, many countries feel that
this is not necessary,” Novaksaid.
Al-Badri,
meanwhile, said OPEC did not plan to cut production despite sliding oil prices
which have slumped 50% to around $50 a barrel in the past year.
Under the
Saudi insistence,OPEC decided to keep output levels intact in its last
meeting in Vienna in June despite the supply glut.
"We met in
December last year and we met in June this year. We decided to keep our production
at 30 million barrels a day, the same as before. We are not ready to reduce our
production,” al-Badri said on Thursday.
The OPEC
chief said he didn’t expect prices to fall further because demand was growing.
Novak also estimated that global oil demand would grow by 1.2-1.3 million bpd
this year.
Analysts
have said they were confident prices would return to $90 a barrel in three
years.Al-Badri said, "While the prices ... no doubt will rebound, it is
still too early to say when this will happen."
(www.presstv.ir)