Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh rejected leaving the 2016 pact of curbing oil output by OPEC members.
"Every decision in OPEC needs unanimity … I do not believe that we can reach an agreement in this meeting," Zanganeh was also quoted as saying by Shana, Oil Ministry's news portal, late on Tuesday.
His comments show that OPEC members are set to clash when they meet on June 22-23 in Vienna, Austria, to discuss the proposal to end global output cuts.
OPEC's leading oil producer Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC member Russia have said they are prepared to hike output to appease USA about supply and prices.
However, according to the Iranian minister, the market's current need for more oil is rather exaggerated and could cause great damage to global markets.
Zanganeh rejected any increase, including the compromise by some OPEC officials for a 300,000-600,000 barrels a day hike in the second half of the year. “There’s no need,” he said.
The US has reportedly asked top OPEC producer Saudi Arabia to offset potential disruptions to Iranian oil exports by pumping more.
OPEC reached a historic agreement with Russia and other non-members in 2016 to keep 1.8 million barrels per day off the market. That arrangement has cleared a global glut of crude oil that sent prices spiraling from more than $100 a barrel in 2014 to less than $30 a barrel in 2016. International benchmark Brent crude has since rebounded to about $75 a barrel.
The minister stressed that it is Trump who has caused such uneasiness for the oil market by imposing sanctions against Iran and Venezuela, yet he now expects OPEC to deal with the consequences by pumping more.
"President Trump thinks that he can order OPEC and instruct OPEC to do something," he said.
He called the act "unfair" and said OPEC is not a wing of the US Energy Department.
Zanganeh said he would leave Vienna on Friday before OPEC holds talks with non-OPEC producers the next day and added that a recent rise in oil prices was mainly the fault of Washington, which imposed new sanctions on OPEC members Iran and Venezuela.
The reimposition of sanctions on Iran and the continuing decline in Venezuela's output have convinced some OPEC members that producers must start easing production caps.
--- Iran's Allies
In addition to Iran, OPEC members Iraq, Venezuela and Algeria said they opposed a production increase despite supply outages in Libya and Venezuela.
Two OPEC sources told Reuters that even Saudi Arabia’s Persian Gulf allies Kuwait and Oman were against big, immediate increases in output.
One OPEC source said the Saudi-Russian proposal of a 1.5-million-bpd increase was “just a tactic” aimed at persuading fellow members to compromise on a smaller rise of around 0.5-0.7 million bpd.
Commerzbank commodities analyst Carsten Fritsch said that given big differences in the positions of OPEC members, the Friday meeting was likely to be tough, Reuters reported.
“Unanimity is needed for any OPEC decision. This recalls the June 2011 meeting, when OPEC was unable to agree on an increase in production to compensate for the outages ... in Libya,” Fritsch said.
Citigroup's closely followed global head of commodity research, Ed Morse, said he thinks it will be very difficult for oil producers to clinch an agreement in Vienna.
"I think it's going to be a bad meeting," he told CNBC.
"I don't see how they get an agreement. The probability is about zero."
