ZCZC
BCN-13
OPEC-OIL-ENERGY-IRAN
Iran urges OPEC to rebuff ‘threats’ from Trump
TEHRAN, Sept 24, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Iran on Sunday called on its OPEC
partners not to bow to “threats” from US President Donald Trump, as the oil
cartel prepared to meet to discuss output levels.
“I hope the outcome of this meeting will not be affected by President
Trump’s threats,” Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh told SHANA, his
ministry’s news agency.
Ahead of Sunday’s meeting in Algiers of the Organisation of Petroleum
Exporting Countries, Trump tweeted that “the OPEC monopoly must get prices
down now!” by raising output.
Middle East states “would not be safe for very long” without the United
States, the president also wrote Thursday.
Zanganeh fired back, saying the claim that “America safeguards the
security and survival of producing countries” was the “biggest insult to
American allies in the region”.
“OPEC is an organisation independent of America and will hopefully stay
so,” he said.
However, the Algiers meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC ministers is expected to
offer an increase in output to “offset Iran’s production cut”, said Zanganeh.
Output from Iran has hit its lowest level since July 2016, according to
the International Energy Agency, as top buyers India and China distance
themselves from Tehran.
Trump has called for OPEC members, primarily US ally Saudi Arabia, to
raise production, and warned importers to stop buying oil from Iran or face
American sanctions.
The US in May withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran and
reimposed sanctions on the Iranian economy, with a US embargo due to hit
Iran’s oil industry on November 4.
BSS/AFP/HR/0958