TEHRAN: Iran's oil minister said Sunday that $100 for a barrel of crude was appropriate and there was no need to hold an emergency OPEC meeting to discuss the price. “The price of $100 for oil per barrel is real ... OPEC does not need to hold an emergency meeting over the price issue,” Massoud Mirkazemi told a news conference. Brent crude prices rallied this week to around $98 a barrel while US oil futures were at about $91, well above the $70-$80 range. One delegate from a Gulf OPEC member state told Reuters Thursday OPEC could hold an emergency meeting if oil prices “exceed $100 and stay there”. Libya, Ecuador and Venezuela have all said prices need to be higher to help producing nations maintain output. “None of the OPEC members find $100 concerning,” Mirkazemi said, adding that some members of the producers' group would still not see any need for an emergency meeting if the price rose to $110 or $120. Iran holds the rotating OPEC presidency. The next scheduled OPEC meeting is on June 2. “None of the members have asked for an emergency meeting and I think for a long time there would be no such request,” Mirkazemi said. Analysts are divided between those who see fundamental strength as the world economy recovers, driving up fuel consumption, and those who focus on differences between today's relatively well-supplied market and that of 2008, when oil prices raced to an all-time high of nearly $150 a barrel. At the New York Mercantile Exchange, a barrel of light sweet crude for delivery in February closed at $91.54 Friday. The rise in global oil prices has been attributed to a harsh winter hitting Europe and parts of North America, as well as growth in China and other developing nations. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has said speculation was also fuelling the price rise. At its last meeting at Quito, the 12-nation cartel decided to leave production quotas unchanged, stressing the looming risks to the fragile global economic recovery. Some OPEC members – Iran, Venezuela and Libya – were urging higher prices at Quito to above $100 a barrel to offset what they said were rising production costs. But OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia differed, saying between $70 and $80 a barrel was a “fair price.” Iran took over the cartel's rotating presidency from Jan. 1, the first time in 36 years that Tehran holds the leadership of the cartel which accounts for 40 percent of world output.
