Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told Mehr News that in a just and fair condition, “Oil prices in the world markets should range $ 70-80 per barrel.”
“The majority of OPEC members have come to a general agreement on this price; we are not concerned with tumbling oil prices; under no circumstances would we abandon Iran’s historical quota in OPEC basket,” he told Mehr News.
Mehr News asked Mr. Zanganeh about Iran’s correspondence with OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri before recent meeting regarding rise of Iran’s quota, and whether Iran would deem it as OPEC ‘cog in Iran’s machine,’ since Kuwait, Iraq, and Libya had returned to claim their quota as they had been producing in the past; “al-Badri would no role whatsoever in this; he would not set countries’ quotas and would only act as an administrative figure in OPEC; the Secretary-General would not trespass outside of his jurisdiction to interfere with matters beyond his scope,” Namdar Zanganeh emphasized.
Since early summer, the gradient of oil price had taken a steep turn downward, with the Brent and US sweet oil indices showing a 16 per cent decrease within past 2 months. Last week Brent’s index tumbled, coming into prices as low as $ 43-44 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate going even lower, $ 40 per barrel.
Rise in Arabian oil of especially Iraq and Saudi Arabia, low demand versus higher supply, China’s falling stocks, and dark prospects in some of EU countries’ economies, unprecedented crude oil reserves of the US and ‘unconventional oil production’ from shale deposits are the contributing factors of low oil prices.
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