Iran Seeks $70-$80 Oil But Sees No OPEC Output Change

Iran’s oil minister urged fellow members of OPEC to cut their collective production to raise crude oil price to a range of $70 - $80 a barrel but sees no imminent change in OPEC’s output strategy.

According to Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh Iran is preparing to increase its own output once the world powers remove sanctions on its economy regardless of any decisions made by OPEC.

“No one is happy” with prices at current levels, he said. “OPEC should decide to manage the market by reducing the level of production,” Zanganeh said. “It seems that the atmosphere is not well for making a change in the market.”

OPEC has exceeded its official production target for 16 consecutive months as the group seeks to defend sales amid a global supply glut. Brent crude, a global benchmark, has slumped 43 percent in the last 12 months and was at $49.08 a barrel in London at 2:15 p.m. local time. OPEC, supplier of about 40 percent of the world’s oil, plans to assess output when ministers from its 12 members meet on Dec. 4 in Vienna.

Iran is pushing to regain the global oil sales it lost after the U.S. and other world powers imposed sanctions over its nuclear program. The country agreed in July to accept limits on its nuclear work in return for access to oil and financial markets.

The IslamicRepublic is seeking $100 billion in investment by March 2021 to increase outputof oil and natural gas, Zanganeh said. The country hopes to stimulate interestby announcing a new contract for oil investors in November. Iran has theworld’s fourth-largest reserves of oil and second-largest deposits of gas,according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.