Iran has urged OPEC member countries to stick to their oil production quotas to halt oil price declines, IRNA news agency reported on Saturday, citing Iran’s OPEC envoy Mohammad Ali Khatibi.
The failure of certain OPEC members to observe their production quota and economic crises in the United States, Europe and certain Asian countries were the main reasons for the falling prices in world oil markets, he said.
International oil prices have fallen from about $118 per barrel to under $100 per barrel in recent weeks amid increasing investor worries about Europe’s lingering sovereign debt woes and discouraging macroeconomic data from the U.S. and China, indicating a slowdown in global economic growth.
While OPEC set official production ceiling at 30 million barrels per day in 2011, it produces about 2 million barrels per day more than the figure, he said, adding that Saudi Arabia and its two allies, Kuwait and the UAE, were the biggest quota violators and the major contributors to falling oil prices in world markets.
The Iranian envoy said Saudi Arabia was increasing its crude supplies to the markets under pressure from the world’s biggest oil consumers to calm down the oil market.
Khatibi said the Iranian oil minister had already sent a letter to the OPEC chief to protest the quota violations by these three countries, adding he had urged the member states not to work against each other.
