International Energy Agency's (IEA) latest decision to release crude from Strategic Petroleum Reserves would damage balance in oil market, Iran's representative to OPEC's governor board Mohammad-Ali Khatibi said Monday, IRNA reported.
Khatibi made the remarks while commenting on the latest decision made by member states of the IEA for releasing crude from Strategic Petroleum Reserves.
According to Khatibi, prior to making the decision, the global oil market was in a stable and balanced situation.
In the immediate aftermath of the June 8 Vienna talks, a newspaper, citing senior OPEC officials, reported that Saudi Arabia planned to boost output to 10 million barrels a day in July, the highest level in more than two decades.
Criticizing Riyadh's decision, Khatibi said the move would threaten oil price in the global market and add to its imbalance.
Tehran would strongly confront any possible move by the oil producing countries to affect market prices, Iran's caretaker oil minister Mohammad Aliabadi said on June, 22 alluding to Saudi Arabia surplus production which faced the strong protest of the OPEC members in the last ministerial meeting of the cartel in Vienna.