An emergency meeting of OPEC members would be effective against the sharp fall in oil prices, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh said Saturday.
"If held, the meeting will be effective. We do not oppose it," Zanganeh was quoted as saying by Iranian Republic News Agency (IRNA).
OPEC refused to cut production to mitigate the slump at its biannual meeting in Nov. 2014 amid an oil price fall of 60 percent in the second half of last year.
Despite recovering more than 40 percent in the first five months of this year, prices fell yet again by around 35 percent since early May. OPEC decided to maintain its output level once more at its biannual meeting on June 5.
Despite the second oil price fall, the oil cartel did not call for an emergency meeting to address this issue except for at its last two biannual meetings.
"An emergency session should be held on consensus of OPEC members," Zanganeh said, according to IRNA.
"It is unlikely that certain countries with a political motivation for the price fall, will agree to hold the emergency meeting so easily," he noted, but did not refer to any OPEC countries by name.
The oil minister determined the reasons for the price slump as world economic issues, increased oil production adding to the glut of supply in world markets, and falling overall demand.
"The most important point about the crude price fall is the world economic problems now," Zangeneh said adding that "formerly, it was the oversupply from shale oil and gas output, but now it is due to demand fall of countries like China."
- 'Failure to hold emergency session will push prices lower'
Meanwhile, Iran's former envoy to OPEC, Mohammad-Ali Khatibi, said on Saturday that the absence of an emergency OPEC session would have negative effects on the market and would push prices even lower.
"The failure to hold an OPEC emergency session to make appropriate and new decisions will adversely affect the market, even leading to drastic fall in the prices," he was quoted as saying by IRNA.
He stressed that OPEC produces more than its quota, above 30 million barrels a day, adding almost two million barrels of crude every day to the global oversupply in addition to the oil production from non-OPEC countries.
"Now the output surplus is at a level in which the market is not able to absorb all the extra oil," he said.
Moreover, Khatibi explained that the psychological factor with the expectation that Iran will increase its oil production upon the removal of sanctions on the country, have also pushed prices lower.
IRNA reported that after the lifting of sanctions, a potential increase in Iran's oil supply of around 500,000 to 600,000 barrels a day will create an environment for prices to further decline.
By Ovunc Kutlu
Anadolu Agency
ovunc.kutlu@aa.com.tr