DOHA: The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will watch market developments closely and will be able to work well together as long as there is ‘no outside influence,’ Iran’s OPEC governor said on Tuesday.
OPEC, at its last meeting in June, failed to reach consensus on an output deal to contain crude oil prices and scheduled to meet again in early December.
"We will study the latest market situation at the time of the meeting," said Iran’s OPEC Governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi.
When asked whether there would be a repeat of issues seen in June, Khatibi said, "People who are informed know that these problems enter the organization from outside of it. Before the (June) meeting a number of official of consumer countries demanded it to increase production. I believe if there are no pressure from outside, we have no problem within the organization."
OPEC expects world oil supplies to remain ample during the northern hemisphere winter and keep a lid on oil prices, indicating the producer group is unlikely to make major changes to output at a meeting next month.
Iran is planning to persuade OPEC member countries that raised output in response to the Libyan crisis earlier this year to return production levels back to where they were before, Iranian Oil Ministry said last week.
Asked about the diplomatic row between Iran and Saudi Arabia, triggered by allegations over a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Khatibi said, "OPEC is an economic organization, not a political one. If you look at the past when OPEC members were at times in war, they held meetings and held decisions."
