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Iran hints OPEC should cut back on crude output

14 March 2009 12:11 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Iran’s oil minister Gholam Hossein Nozari said there was "too much oil" on the market on Saturday, the eve of a crucial OPEC output meeting, AFP reported.
"Of course, there is too much oil," Nozari told reporters upon his arrival in the Austrian capital, hinting that he could seek to lower output.
But Nozari did not specify whether he would call for a new production cut at the scheduled cartel meeting on Sunday.
"We’ll review the market and then we decide," he added.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which pumps 40 percent of world crude, agreed late last year on cuts to reduce output by 4.2 million barrels per day.
Iran, the cartel’s second largest oil producer after kingpin member Saudi Arabia, pumps approximately four million barrels of oil per day.
OPEC’s 12 member states have seen their oil revenues slashed because crude prices have slumped from record levels since July in line with a sharp global economic downturn.
On Friday meanwhile, Venezuelan Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez had called for OPEC members to comply "100 percent" with recent output cuts to address oversupply.
There is "a very good level of compliance but we are going to work to have 100 percent of compliance" to boost weak oil prices, Ramirez said in Vienna.