Baku, Azerbaijan, Sept. 2
By Emil Ilgar – Trend:
OPEC Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo will pay an official visit to Qatar on Sep. 4 one day before his trip to Iran, an Iranian source told Trend Sep. 2 on conditions of anonymity.
Barkindo is scheduled to visit Tehran Sept. 5 and meet with Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh to convince Tehran to join an oil freeze plan.
According to the Iranian source, Barkindo had a meeting with Iran’s Ambassador to Vienna Ebadollah Molaei two weeks ago as well.
The oil freeze plan as well as reviewing the market situations and outlook of the supply and demand in the oil market are expected to be discussed during Barkindo’s meetings with Qatari and Iranian officials.
OPEC members will meet on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum (IEF), which groups producers and consumers, in Algeria on Sept. 26-28.
Iran’s oil minister has confirmed that he will take part in the upcoming meeting, aimed at a "common action" to support the global oil prices.
It is expected that the talks on oil production freeze be held with OPEC members as well as non-members.
Iran has been called on by many countries, the rival Saudi Arabia in particular, to cooperate with the proposal to hold outputs at January levels.
Tehran has rejected the idea as an imposition of a new set of sanctions on Iran after the country was freed of economic sanctions in the same month.
Iran’s oil output stood at 3.9 million barrels per day (mbpd) before sanctions brought it down to 2.8 mbpd. The output now stands at 3.7 mbpd.
Saudi Arabia and some other countries used Iran’s partial absence from the market under sanctions to export beyond their OPEC quotas, with the result that the OPEC output for July stood at 33.44 mbpd while the official ceiling is 30.45 mbpd.