Iran presses OPEC for output cut

TEHRAN—Iran’s OPEC envoy Hossein Kazempour Ardebili has called on the oil cartel to agree a new oil output cut at its next meeting to counter an oversupply of crude.
“Some factors like the decrease of world economic growth and accumulation of oil and stockpiles of its by-products indicate that the market needs a cut in OPEC oil output again,” Kazempour Ardebili said, according to the official news agency IRNA on Sunday. “There is still oversupply in the market beyond the oil demand and with OPEC’s output cut (agreed in October) all the global market demands have been covered,” he added.
The 11 members of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are to meet for a ministerial meeting in the Nigerian capital Abuja on December 14 to decide on a probable output cut in a bid to stabilise oil prices. Kazempour Ardebili, the representative of OPEC’s number two producer, predicted a new possible output cut would be “between 500,000 and one million barrels per day” of crude oil.

—Agencies