Oil ministers from the Organisation of Petrolium Exporting Countries (OPEC) last night reached an agreement to raise supplies but Iran has decided to opt out of the pact, a senior OPEC delegate said. "We have agreed to raise production. OPEC will raise production without Iran," said the delegate after a two-day conference ended at OPEC's headquarters in Vienna last night.
However, Iranian Oil Minister Mr Bijan Zanganeh, objecting to the decision aimed at achieving a "soft landing" for soaring oil prices without unduly damaging economies, said the cartel had failed to find a compromise agreeable to Tehran on raising oil supplies.
But in a rare departure from its consensus approach, ministers were expected to approve a plan to boost output by as much as 7 per cent, even without Iran's participation.
Iran entered the meeting as the main holdout to a proposal to raise production by 1.7 million barrels per day beginning on April 1st.
Such an increase would reverse production cuts initiated last March that led to a tripling of oil prices over the past year.
Saudi Arabia, OPEC's leading producer, was the main advocate of raising production.
Analysts have said an increase in OPEC output by 1.7 million barrels daily could help ease the prices that consumers are paying for petrol and other refined petroleum products.
The decision represents something of a victory for the US, which had lobbied hard in recent weeks for OPEC to relax its constraints on production.
An OPEC source said there were precedents for OPEC to act without unanimous agreement, if backed by a majority of OPEC members. However, it wasn't clear how an agreement to boost output would work without Iran's consent.
Iran has proposed boosting daily production by no more than 1.2 million barrels of crude - an amount that probably would do little to reduce world oil prices.
OPEC pumps more than 26 million barrels of crude each day, or about 35 per cent of the world's supply. Key non-OPEC producers, such as Mexico and Norway, have said they are watching to see what OPEC will do before adjusting their own output.
