Major crude oil producer Iran said yesterday that any output hike by OPEC as requested by the US would not affect skyrocketing prices.
“This would only increase inventories,” Iranian Oil Minister Gholam Hossein Nozari told reporters in reaction to US President George W. Bush pressing OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia to raise oil output.
“The market is oversupplied and increasing production will not affect prices,” the oil minister said when asked whether an OPEC output hike would lower prices, which hit nearly US$128 per barrel on Friday.
Saudi Arabia said that global supply was balanced with demand, but added that it had increased production by 300,000 barrels per day this month.
Iran is OPEC’s No. 2 and the world’s fourth-largest exporter of oil.
When prices reached US$115 a barrel last month Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said oil was priced too low and that the commodity “should find its real value.”
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By refusing to agree spending increases to appease US President Donald Trump, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez threatened to derail a summit that NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte needs to run smoothly for the sake of the military alliance’s future survival. Ahead of yesterday’s gathering in The Hague, Netherlands, things were going off the rails. European officials have expressed irritation at the spoiler role that Sanchez is playing when their No. 1 task is to line up behind a pledge to raise defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. Rutte needed to keep Spain in line while preventing others such as Slovakia
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