Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct.14/ Trend F.Milad/
Taking Year 2000 as the reference, real oil prices are between $70 to $80 per barrel, National Iranian Oil Company's Director for International Affairs, Mohammad Ali Khatibi said on Monday, ISNA News Agency reported.
"Current oil prices represent nominal prices of the commodity and by considering inflation rate and other economic issues, it could be argued that real oil prices are between $70 to $80 or $10 to $15 respectively when we consider the year 2000 or the 1970s as the reference," Khatibi explained.
Calling the current upward trend of oil prices natural, the official said that "current oil prices are the result of natural developments in the world oil markets and fixing oil prices based on command economy is not possible".
Khatibi, who is also Iran's Governor at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), said in September that the current oil prices are no threat to the world economy.
Khatibi told the oil ministry's website that most oil consuming countries and even those countries that traditionally look for "conservative prices" consider $100 prices fair, therefore current oil prices that are just a few dollars above the figure hardly can affect large economies of the US and Europe.