Iran says the recent steep slide in oil prices and worsening global financial crisis will be studied carefully before it makes a proposal on output reductions for Opec, the Islamic Republic's Opec governor said on Sunday. "It is not fair to say so early. That is why we should consider all factors carefully and look at the supply-demand balance," Muhammad Ali Khatibi told Reuters.
On Sunday Iran's Oil Minister Gholamhossin Nozari was quoted in a local Iranian newspaper that it would push for a cut in oil output at the group's emergency meeting on November 18.
Khatibi said that especially troubling was how deep oil prices had fallen in recent months versus other financial indexes. "Oil prices have fallen more than 40 percent and the decline is not comparable to other financial indexes," he said.
Oil prices touched 13-month lows on Friday in a global flight from risk, amid concerns of a world-wide recession and further signs of slumping energy demand.
The price fall has caused some members of the cartel to call for a reduction in production levels and the cartel will discuss the impact of the global financial crisis on the oil market at the emergency meeting on November 18 in Vienna.
Iran is the world's fourth-largest crude producer and traditionally a price hawk in Opec, which pumps about 40 percent of the oil produced globally.
Opec members Nigeria, Qatar, Libya and Iraq last week also floated the idea of a cut in the group's oil output. It does not officially have quotas, but the term is sometimes used to describe agreed output targets for each member country.
The 13-member group last met in September, when it agreed to comply strictly with its formal output target, a move Opec said meant it would cut supply by about 500,000 barrels per day (bpd).
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said it would be "wrong" for Opec to cut output just as oil prices are falling. On Sunday Opec said the overall bearish sentiment in the market is expected to persist, especially since there was no quick end to the current market crisis or worsening economic outlook. This view came from Mohammad Alipour-Jeddi, head of the group's petroleum studies department in a statement made to the International Monetary Fund's steering committee.