Iran wants OPEC to discuss output cut in March

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran wants OPEC to discuss cutting crude oil output at the cartel’s next meeting in March as stocks are expected to increase, Iranian Oil Minister Gholamhossein Nozari said on Saturday.

Nozari was speaking a day after OPEC, meeting in Vienna, kept oil supplies unchanged, and Iran and Venezuela said it may need to curb output in March to defend prices against a drop in demand, should the United States slip into recession.


“Our proposal … for the upcoming meeting is that OPEC … cuts its output capacity,” Nozari told a news conference in Tehran. “Iran and Venezuela brought up this issue so that it would be discussed at OPEC’s next meeting.”

He said the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries had reduced production in the past at the end of the cold season in the northern hemisphere, when demand for oil usually falls.

Reuters