Iran calls for Opec cuts

Opec president Iran threw down the gauntlet to the Gulf Arab oil producers on Friday, asking them to reduce output back to pre-Libya crisis volumes, making agreement on output policy at Opec''s December meeting more difficult. The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, source of more than a third of the world''s oil, meets on December 14 in Vienna, six months after its last gathering collapsed in acrimony and without a deal.
In June, Iran successfully opposed a move led by top exporter Saudi Arabia to raise Opec quotas to meet a shortfall in supplies from Libya. Saudi and its Gulf Opec allies raised production anyway after the meeting - a move criticised by price hawk Iran. "We will ask the countries that increased their production when Libya stopped production to change the level of production to the previous level," the Iranian oil ministry''s SHANA website quoted new oil minister Rostam Qasemi as saying. A cut in supplies to May''s levels would entail removing some 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) from Opec production, a move unlikely to find support among the Gulf Arab Opec members while oil prices remain well above $100 a barrel.