Iran has made no decision about joining an OPEC meeting on oil output next month and does not expect to reach the production levels that its government has previously said are required before it can make an output agreement, an Oil Ministry spokeswoman said Tuesday.
The statements cast a doubt on the success of informal talks due next month in Algiers to revive efforts to tighten output, the Wall Street Journal reported.
A similar push failed in April in Qatar, when Iran said it would not limit its oil production until it had reached between 4 million and 4.2 million barrels a day, a level it says represented its capacity before the West tightened sanctions over the country’s nuclear program.
Other producers in the 14-nation Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had hoped Tehran would produce that output by late September. Iran produced 3.6 million barrels a day in July, according to OPEC.
But a spokeswoman for Iran’s Oil Ministry said officials “have not determined yet to join the meeting” and have “made no decision” on joining a cap.
Asked if production would reach pre-sanctions level by late September, she said “we don’t think so.”
Iran says it plans to boost crude production to 5.8 million barrels per day in five years, including 4.8 million bpd of heavy crude and 1 million barrels of condensate—a type of light, sweet crude extracted from gas fields in the Persian Gulf.
It has declared that it will do all that it takes to regain its market share lost to rival producers after tighter restrictions imposed by the US and EU significantly curtailed its oil production and exports.
