Baku, Azerbaijan, Jan. 6
By Fatih Karimov - Trend:
Iran is negotiating with non-OPEC oil producers to reduce oil production ceiling, Iranian oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said.
Zanganeh said for the time being, Iran should boost its oil production, Iran's Tabnak website reported on Jan. 6.
The country should raise its oil output to deal with critical situations, he added.
Iran's Mehr news agency also quoted Zanganeh as saying on Jan. 6 that Iran is negotiating with Russia, as the largest non-OPEC oil producer, to reduce its oil production.
However, a final agreement has yet to be reached, Zanganeh said.
Countries which have higher oil productions will be more powerful and influential in OPEC, he noted.
At the latest OPEC meeting, Iran asked members to reduce output in order to help price go up, but some members did not agree with Iran's proposal, he said.
Iran's ex-OPEC governor Mohammad-Ali Khatibi believes that all major oil-producing countries need to gather and take a serious action to prevent oil prices from falling further.
Khatibi told Trend Agency on Dec. 19 that all producers are bearing losses under current circumstances.
"Some states may use their previous savings to compensate the decrease in their oil revenues, but in the long-term they can't afford such losses," he said.
The Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has predicted that Iran's total oil revenues will be 30 percent less than expected.
Falling global oil prices forced Iran's government to decrease the oil price figure in next year's budget to $72 per barrel.
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