TEHRAN: Iran will continue to oppose pressure from consumer nations for an increase in oil cartel OPEC's output quota, its caretaker oil minister said Sunday. “In accordance with the supply and demand situation, Iran will oppose raising OPEC's oil production quota ceiling at the next meeting (on December 14),” Mohammad Aliabadi told the Mehr news agency. At their last meeting on June 9, OPEC ministers decided to keep official output levels at 24.84 million barrels per day (mbpd), where they have stood since January 2009. The International Energy Agency (IEA), which represents industrialized nations, then announced Thursday that it would release 60 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserves over the next month. The move sparked a massive sell-off, with oil prices dropping more than $8 in London and nearly $6 in New York. Aliabadi said “stabilising OPEC's oil production quota could possibly lead to stable oil prices.” “OPEC is not seeking to raise oil prices,” the minister insisted. “By lowering oil prices... America is seeking to affect the next presidential election,” he charged. OPEC's number two exporter after Saudi Arabia, Iran is the current holder of the cartel's rotating presidency. Aliabadi's remarks came a day after Iran's OPEC representative Mohammad Ali Khatibi accused the US and its European allies of forcing an “artificial” oil price slump on the market. Iran accused the United States and its European allies Saturday of seeking to manipulate the oil market by forcing an “artificial” reduction in prices, the oil ministry's website SHANA reported. “America and Europe ... have done everything they could to reduce global oil prices,” Iran's OPEC representative Mohammad Ali Khatibi, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the oil cartel, told SHANA. “The developments of the past few days are not at all based on supply and demand or the needs of the market, but are rather a side effect of political pressure exerted particularly from the American side,” he added. The United States, the world's largest oil-consuming nation, took the lead in moving to draw down reserves, saying it would release 30 million barrels from its Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
