Iran to send oil minister to OPEC meeting in Vienna

Iran's Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh is scheduled to leave Tehran for Vienna to attend the 172nd meeting of the member countries of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Slated for Thursday, May 25, the highly anticipated meeting is expected to extend the organization's output cut plan for another 6 months.

OPEC members agreed late last year to cut collective production at the start of 2017 by 1.2 million barrels a day for six months. Non-OPEC producers, including Russia, also agreed to cut their output by another, roughly 600,000 barrels a day.

A monthly report from the International Energy Agency, released on Tuesday, pegged OPEC’s member compliance with the cuts at 96%—a historically high compliance rate for the group.

EA