OPEC Unlikely to Discuss US Sanctions Against Iran

OPEC is likely to reject a request by Iran to discuss US sanctions against Tehran at this month’s meeting of the oil producer group, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Iran’s OPEC Governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili asked the chairman of the OPEC board to include a sanctions debate on the agenda for the June 22 talks, according to a copy of Kazempour’s letter dated June 2 and seen by Reuters.

The source said that after receiving Kazempour’s request, the UAE’s OPEC Governor Ahmed al-Kaabi sought the advice of legal counsel. The counsel responded negatively to Iran’s plea, the source said, on the grounds that the ministerial agenda could not be amended because it had been finalized.

Last month, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh asked OPEC to support it against new US sanctions and signaled Tehran disagreed with Saudi Arabia’s views on the possible need to increase global oil supplies, Reuters reported.

“I would like to ... seek OPEC’s support in accordance with Article 2 of the OPEC Statute, which emphasizes safeguarding the interests of member countries individually and collectively,” Zanganeh wrote last month in a letter to his UAE counterpart who holds the OPEC presidency in 2018.

US President Donald Trump last month pulled out of an international nuclear deal with Iran, announcing the “highest level” of sanctions against the OPEC member. Iran is the third-largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Oil ministers from OPEC will be meeting at the group’s Vienna headquarters to discuss output policy.

Citing Zanganeh’s letter, Kazempour asked the board to include in the June talks an agenda item titled “OPEC Ministerial Conference support to member countries that are under illegal, unilateral and extraterritorial sanctions”.

Earlier on Friday, Kazempour said a US request for Saudi Arabia to pump more oil so that it could cover a drop in Iranian exports and ease a rise in oil prices was “crazy and astonishing” and said OPEC would not heed the appeal.

“Consumers are now acting to use oil as a political weapon, and yet blaming us of fixing oil prices? Such an upside-down world,” Kazempour told Reuters.