Iran regrets OPEC losing credibility

/ Policy & Regulations / Wednesday, 19 September 2018 07:30

Oil cartel OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) is losing credibility, as some of its members have turned it into a tool in the service of the United States, regretted a senior Iranian official.

“Saudi Arabia and the UAE are turning OPEC into a tool for the US and consequently the organization has not much credit left,” Iran's OPEC governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili told the Shana newswire, affiliated to Iran's Oil Ministry.

“It is a fact that OPEC is losing its organizational character and becoming a forum,” he added.

OPEC and its non-cartel partners, including Russia, agreed at the end of June to increase their output by around a million barrels a day after a previous agreement to limit their supplies in order to raise prices.

However, Iran, a founding member of the cartel, strongly disapproved the decision taken, as the country faces new US sanctions, following Washington's decision to withdraw from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which has woken up supply concerns in global markets.

Ardebili also accused Saudi Arabia and Russia of taking over Iranian market due to production increase and said that OPEC's responsibility is to restore market balance, not to boycott its founding members amid sanctions that threaten to cut Iranian oil sales.

US President Donald Trump is pushing other countries to cut imports of Iranian oil to zero and is set to introduce a new round of sanctions on Iranian oil sales on 5 November.

Nevertheless, according to the International Energy Agency, output from Iran has witnessed its lowest level since July 2016 with top buyers India and China distancing themselves from Tehran as the sanctions approach.

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