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| © Essam Al-Sudani / Reuters |
With its return to the
crude market Tehran is ready to negotiate with Riyadh over the problem of
global oversupply of oil, Iran's Press TV reported.
RT
report continues:
“We
support any form of dialogue and cooperation with OPEC member states including
Saudi Arabia,” Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told reporters.
The
Minister added that some Persian Gulf countries say they have an economic
interest in collapsing crude prices. “But what they want to achieve is not at
all for economic gains,” he said.
“If
there were a strong political will, the price of oil would have been balanced
within one single week,” said Zanganeh.
Zanganeh
added that political motives are behind some OPEC members' insistence on
overproduction and that no producer was happy with the current prices.
Most
experts attribute the production boost to Saudi Arabia's attempt to fight off
competition from Russia and the US. The move has led to about 2.5 million barrels
per day (bpd) glut in the oil market and resulted in prices falling from almost
US$115 per barrel in mid-2014 to January’s 12-year lows of US$27 per barrel.
Iran
recently resumed crude exports after the lifting of sanctions and is aiming to
increase production by 500,000 bpd.
This
is likely to add pressure on the already oversupplied market. According to the
chief economist of World Bank's Middle East and North Africa Region Shantayanan
Devarajan, a million bpd increase in Iran's oil exports can make prices fall by
an additional 13 percent, or US$3 per barrel, TASS reported.
As of 9:35am GMT on
Wednesday, Brent was trading at US$31.27, while US WTI cost US$28.66.
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