Zangeneh: OPEC unlikely to revive quotas
Iran’s Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh says OPEC members are unlikely to agree on reinstating the organization’s individual production quotas in their next meeting on Dec. 4.
“Certain countries are opposed to reviving quotas in OPEC. Hence, it is unlikely to reach a conclusion in the next meeting,” he said on the sidelines of a two-day oil and gas conference which opened in Tehran Saturday.
OPEC approved a Saudi plan to scrap allocating fixed production quotas to member countries in its Dec. 2011 meeting and introduced output ceiling of 30 million barrels per day (bpd) which does not specify quotas.
Zangeneh described the decision a “historic mistake”, saying “making up for this big mistake and reviving the quota system in OPEC is a very hard task”.
“It is surprising why this plan was ever accepted,” the IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.
OPEC has been producing nearly a million more barrels of oil each day than its 30 million bpd ceiling for the past 16 months.
Because of overproduction chiefly by Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC producers, there is currently up to 2.5 million bpd of excess oil in the market which has caused crude prices to lose around 60% of their value since mid-2014.
Iran has asked the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to reduce production and respect the ceiling as it plans to reclaim its position as OPEC's second largest producer.
Sanctions imposed on Tehran in 2011 forced the country to cut its exports to 1 million bpd from around 2.3 million bpd. Zangeneh has said Iran has a right to claim back its share of the market.
Iran will export an additional 500,000 barrels of oil a day after sanctions are lifted under the July nuclear agreement and begin selling another 500,000 bpd six months later, he said earlier this month.
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