EMEA News
Iran Will Win Back its Share of OPEC Production "At All Costs"
Iran will win back its share of production from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) "at all costs," according to one of the country's most senior economic officials.
Mohammad Bagher Nobakht also told CNN that other OPEC members should reduce output to accommodate Iran's return to the international export market: "If the supply of oil is to decline, it should be the countries that increased their production while we were under sanctions that should scale back now: they should let Iran have its share of the market."
Acknowledging that some OPEC members have called for an emergency meeting to discuss ways to balance the global oil market, Nobakht, who is an adviser to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, said Iran is also unhappy with OPEC policy: "We believe that OPEC should decrease the supply of oil to the market because we need a balance between supply and demand."
Iran has begun selling 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) from storage and expects to increase exports by about 1 million bpd within a year; it can reportedly cope with rock bottom oil prices due to $13 per barrel production costs and less of a dependence on oil.
Ironically, Nobakht credits the sanctions against his country for Iran being able to separate 75 percent of the resources it needs to run the Islamic Republic from oil revenue, and he believes that in five years oil revenue will have been entirely removed from government expenditure and used exclusively to invest in infrastructure.
Following the lifting of sanctions against Iran earlier this month, the Islamic Republic cut its crude prices to Europe for February delivery.
