Iran Ready to Support Extension of OPEC, Non-OPEC Oil Output Cut Deal

The Iranian petroleum minister said Saturday Tehran will agree on prolongation of the agreement on reduction of oil output reached by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-cartel member states, if other parties to the deal agree to do so.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Iran is ready to support prolongation of the agreement of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and non-cartel member states on reduction of oil output, Iran's Petroleum Minister Bijan Zangeneh said Saturday.

"If all the OPEC members or a majority of OPEC members support this position, we will support this issue and we would go along other countries and members," Zangeneh said, as quoted by the Iranian Shana news agency.

He added that Tehran was seeing "positive signals" for an extension of the accord on oil production cuts.

In November 2016, the OPEC reached the deal to cut oil production for the first half of 2017 with the possibility of extension in order to support global oil prices. Soon after that the accord was backed by several non-OPEC countries, including Russia.

Despite being the OPEC member state, under the accord Iran has obtained the right to increase its output in order to assist its economy to recover the losses it faced under western sanctions. At the same time within the framework of the deal, Tehran abandoned its plan to increase its daily output up to 3.975 million barrels and agreed to increase the production only up to to 3.79 million barrels per day.