Iran calls for new cut in OPEC oil output

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-12-03 17:13

TEHRAN - Iran's OPEC envoy Hossein Kazempour Ardebili has called on the oil cartel to agree a new oil output cut at its next meeting to counter an oversupply of crude, official news agency IRNA reported.


Security officers overlook a street from a rooftop of the OPEC headquarters in Vienna. Iran's OPEC envoy Hossein Kazempour Ardebili has called on the oil cartel to agree a new oil output cut at its next meeting to counter an oversupply of crude, official news agency IRNA reported. [Reuters\File]

"Some factors like the decrease of world economic growth and accumulation of oil and stockpiles of its by-products indicate that the market needs a cut in OPEC oil output again," Kazempour Ardebili said.

"There is still oversupply in the market beyond the oil demand and with OPEC's output cut (agreed in October) all the global market demands have been covered," he added.

The 11 members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are to meet for a ministerial meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja on December 14 to decide on a probable output cut in a bid to stabilise oil prices.

Kazempour Ardebili, the representative of OPEC's number two producer, predicted a new possible output cut would be "between 500,000 and one million barrels per day" of crude oil.

"We should wait and see the developments of the crude oil market by the December 14 meeting of OPEC in Abuja," Kazempour Ardebili said.

Nigerian Oil Minister and OPEC president Edmund Daukoru said Friday that he expected OPEC to cut its output quota by at least half a million barrels per day when it meets on December 14.

"When we meet, we will look at the data and the trend and I do not expect anything less at this meeting," Daukoru told reporters.

At its last meeting in Qatar in October, OPEC approved a cut in its output quota of 1.2 million barrels a day to stem falling prices, which have dropped from above 78 dollars in July.



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