Iran is ready to freeze oil production

Iran is ready to join the plan to freeze the level of oil production, since the country has already reached the desired production volume, the representative of National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) stated. The director for international relations of the company Mohsen Kamsari, referring to OPEC calculations, stressed that Iran has reached its desired production level of 4.2 million barrels per day. "Accordingly, the figure set by the Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh was reached, and we can join the plan to freeze oil production," he told Iranian media.

At the same time, he emphasized that the final decision is up to the Minister.

Iran previously stated that it desires to restore the level of oil production, which amounted to about 4 million barrels per day prior to the introduction of sanctions, as well as to restore its share in the global market, accordingly. This position was one of the reasons for the disagreement between the oil producing countries at the meeting in Doha on April 17, where they discussed the possibility of freezing the oil production volumes at January level.

This week, the managing director of the National Iranian Oil Company Rokneddin Javadi stated that the level of oil production of Iran has reached 3.7 million barrels per day. According to him, Iran will be ready to join the output freeze plan in 1-2 months after reaching the pre-sanction level of oil production and export.

The oil producing countries failed to reach the agreement at the meeting in Doha on April 17. A number of OPEC countries, Saudi Arabia, above all, suddenly began to insist on including a wider range of participants in the agreement, including Iran.

As the leading analyst of the National Energy Security Fund, a professor of the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation Igor Yushkov stated earlier in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza, the fact that Iran reached the planned capacity of oil production will not help exporting countries to reach an agreement on the oil output freeze plan at the next summit in June. "A return to the negotiations on freezing of production is unlikely at the moment, because the negotiations themselves were carried out in hope that we will reach a compromise - but when the compromise with the major producers was reached, and when they were ready to negotiate without Iran, the Saudi Oil Minister informed our Minister Alexander Novak that the Crown Prince prohibited to sign the documents. Right now no one is immune to such stunts by Riyahdh,” he explained.