Iran Wants OPEC To Slash 1.0 to 1.5 Million Barrels To Raise Prices

November 15, 2008 4:00 p.m. EST

Tehran, Iran (AHN) - Iran is pushing for a reduction in oil output by 1.0 to 1.5 million barrels per day as the 13-member Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) prepares to hold an extraordinary meeting in Cairo later this month.

Oil prices have declined by more than $90 a barrel after it hit a record high price of $147.27 a barrel on July 11, pulling down the profit margin of large energy companies in the last few months.

A light sweet crude-futures barrel for December delivery had dropped below $55-a-barrel mark early this month and it closed down by $1.20 to $57.04 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange on Friday.

On Saturday, Iran's OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi said the crude producers' cartel is likely to roll over the existing levels when the group of countries meets in the Egyptian capital on November 29.

OPEC, which is a supplier of more than a third of the world's crude oil, has already slashed up to 1.5 million barrels of oil last month, but Iran is expecting to level the prices of crude to between $70 and $100.

According OPEC's latest report, the crude producers' cartel also decided to keep the 2009 forecast for oil demand growth estimate unchanged at 1.03 percent.

Iran contributes around 4 million barrels of oil on daily basis to the 40 percent of the world's crude oil produced by the OPEC. The Islamic Republic gets 80 percent of its total revenues from the exports of crude.