TEHRAN - OPEC member states are "satisfied" with current crude prices and production levels are likely to remain unchanged when the cartel meets again next week, Iran`s OPEC representative said Monday.
"We are satisfied with the current price level and we don`t think we should go back to the price range of 25 dollars a barrel," Hossein Kazempour Ardebili told reporters.
"We are all agreed and recognise the suspension of the (22 to 28 dollar) price band," which the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries tried to implement before prices shot up last year, he said.
"At the same time we tacitly go along with the market fluctuation and we are all agreed that changing the prices under the current situation is not appropriate."
Ardebili told reporters that ministers from the 11-nation cartel were all but certain to leave production unchanged when they meet on March 16 in the Iranian city of Isfahan.
"The function of increasing the oil production quota is probably not relevant given the fall in demand in the second quarter of the year... it does not make sense to add another million barrels to the supply at least in the short term.
"And if we cut now, this may send the wrong signal to the market," said Kazempour, Iran`s nominee to be the cartel`s next secretary general.
He acknowledged that a decision on the appointment was unlikely at the Isfahan meeting but said Iran did not want to see it "politicised".
03/07/2005 14:25 GMT