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Iranian Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh says OPEC had decided to wait for an agreement of non-OPEC allies to consider major cuts in the group’s output to shore up oil prices.
Speaking to reporters shortly after the 178th OPEC meeting in Vienna on Thursday, Mr. Zangeneh said the decision to remove more oil from the market to tackle the impact of the coronavirus outbreak which has hammered the prices would depend on the outcome of the conference of OPEC and non-OPEC on Friday morning.
OPEC members have agreed on the outlines of a deal for cutting 1.5 million barrels of crude oil in the second quarter of 2020.
We recommend non-OPEC to reduce half a million barrels and 1 mbd for OPEC countries for this quarter and extend the previous decision and to roll over the decision till the end of 2020 for the figure that was accepted in December, said Mr. Zangeneh.
He said, Tomorrow, everything depends on the non-OPEC agreement to accept to cut for half a million barrels for the second quarter, adding, If they do not accept it we have no deal.
The Iranian Minister of Petroleum further added that Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak seemed to be in Vienna on Friday along with other non-OPEC producers like Mexico, Kazakhstan and others to discuss the move.
It is a deal; they can accept that. They can decide not to accept, Zangeneh added.
He said that there would be no deal without their agreement, but said if an agreement was to be obtained with non-OPEC allies, distribution of the cuts would be pro rata.
Asked how much Russia was expected to contribute, he said, It depends on themselves.
Zangeneh said, OPEC has played its role. If you want to consider this reduction pro rata, like before, the share of non-OPEC is close to one over 3 and the share of OPEC is two over three.
Asked whether there was a plan B if non-OPEC producers failed to second the OPEC proposal, he said: No, we have no other plan. We have only one plan.
The Iranian energy official also underlined the exemption of Libya, Iran and Venezuela from the cuts.
