Iran rejects spat with Russia over Saudi oil push

A senior Iranian oil official has played down differences with Russia over a Saudi-led push to raise crude oil production which has prompted Tehran to warn against breaching OPEC’s current output limits.

According to Press TV, non-OPEC Russia and OPEC members reportedly agreed last month to raise output by around 1 million barrels per day (bpd) from July. Saudi and Russian energy ministers spoke Monday, and reiterated the terms of the agreement.

“For economic and political reasons, we have to stand with Russia; we cannot criticize it so much. Of course, it should be noted that Iran has little problem with Russia in the global oil markets,” Iran's OPEC governor Hossein Kazempour Ardebili said Tuesday.

Russia, he said, had taken heavy borrowings and loans over the past five years to raise its output to around 11 million bpd.

“The deadline for the repayment of the Russian oil debt is now approaching, and the country has to increase its production,” Kazempour said during a meeting with reporters in Tehran.

“Of course, the increase in Russian production is not too big and can be as much as 200,000 barrels,” he added.

Meanwhile, the US President Donald Trump said Saturday that Saudi Arabia had agreed to increase oil production by up to 2 million bpd to moderate high prices.

Saudi Arabia is under the US pressure to ramp up oil production quickly to make up loss of Iranian barrels which the Trump administration has threatened to bring down to zero.

Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday, "The words of some US officials that they want to bring Iran's oil exports to zero are an exaggeration because they will never be able to fulfill it."

"In my opinion, the assumption that one day all the oil producing countries would export their surplus oil and Iran would be the only country unable to export its oil is false and unwise" he told a joint news conference with Swiss President Alain Berset in Bern.

SS