Iran in contact with OPEC partners to improve oil market: minister

Iran is seeking cooperation among member states of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to improve the oil market, Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said here on Monday.

Iran has no plan for an OPEC emergency meeting, but is consulting with other OPEC member states to prevent oil prices from falling further, Zangeneh said.

"Cooperation among OPEC members should be strengthened so that the oil price would be balanced and be reasonable for investors and producers," he told a petrochemical conference here in Tehran.

"Consultations with the OPEC member states have yet to bear fruit," the Iranian minister said. "A political determination is keeping oil prices from edging up."

On Saturday, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said that Iran wants Saudi Arabia to help stop the continuous oil price slump so as to protect the economies of the region's oil producing countries.

"We have told Saudi Arabian officials through diplomatic channels that they should prevent the enemies of the region from harming the growing economies of regional countries," Amir-Abdollahian said.

The talks were held between the officials of the two countries on the sidelines of a recent OPEC meeting. They urged all of the related nations in the area to adopt an oil policy that benefits the whole region, he said.

The senior Iranian diplomat also said the oil price decline was a product of "intentional or unintentional" schemes by some countries to undermine the growing economies in the region.

Oil prices have tumbled almost 50 percent to below 50 U.S. dollars per barrel recently.

Iran's economy is heavily reliant on oil exports. Beside the losses from declining oil prices, Iran's crude exports have fallen 60 percent to 1 million barrels a day due to Western sanctions on its energy and financial sectors. Endit